• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Chinese Vice-Premier on Energy Development During 10th Five-Year Plan

Posted on: Thursday, 29 December 2005, 09:00 CST

Text of report by official Chinese news agency Xinhua (New China News Agency)

Beijing, 27 December: State Council Vice-Premier Zeng Peiyan today gave a report at the 19th meeting of the 10th National People's Congress [NPC] Standing Committee on China's current energy situation and energy security. He reported that, during the 10th Five-Year Plan period, the country has quickened energy development and achieved new successes in that respect. He said major achievements can be seen in the following six respects:

- The country's capacity for energy supply continues to increase. After years of hard work, China has initially created an energy supply pattern - a pattern in which coal is the main energy source; electricity is the centrepiece energy; and the development petroleum, natural gas and new and renewable energies is in full swing. In 2004, the country's total energy output climbed to [an equivalent of] 1.85bn tons of standard coal, making China the world's second largest energy producer. Completed in the year were an initial energy delivery system, regional networks of piping crude oil and finished oil products from north to south and from west to east, and also a pipeline delivering natural gas from western China to eastern China. The electricity delivered from western China to eastern China yielded noticeable results. The regional power grids operated with greater efficiency.

- The mix of energies consumed was optimized. In 2004, the amount of energy China consumed reached [an equivalent of] 1.97bn tons of standard coal, making China the world's second largest energy consuming country. The mix of energies consumed showed that the proportion of coal was on the decline, falling from 76.2 per cent in 1990 to 67.7 per cent in 2004; and the proportion of good, clean energy used was gradually rising. Nuclear power plants' installed capacity reached 6.94m kW; attention was given to developing wind energy, solar energy and biomass energy; the commercialization of fuel ethanol started in nine provinces; and a demonstrative project of industrializing production of oil from coal [mei zhi you] started.

- The technological level of the energy industry continues to rise. The oil and natural gas industry has formed a relatively complete technological system; and the technologies for oil and gas prospecting and development in geologically complex regions and for increasing oilfield yields reached advanced world level. The coal industry already owned many large mines of advanced world level, and the mechanization of coal mining in large state-owned coal mines increased from 65 per cent in 1990 to 79 per cent in 2004. As for the power industry, 300,000- and 600,000-kW generating units have become the mainstay units; and the technologies of manufacturing hydroelectric equipment, project designs, and power plant construction are among the most advanced in the world.

- Progress has been made in energy conservation and environmental protection. Calculated on the basis of constant price, the amount of energy consumed for producing every 10,000 yuan of GDP felled from 16.6 tons of standard coal in 1980 to five tons of standard coal in 2004, or an average decrease of 4 per cent annually. Conservation of energy is now widespread in society. The energy sector has tightened up its efforts to protect the environment.

- Reforms of the energy system are proceeding steadily. An energy market has gradually developed, and an energy system marked by enterprises' independent operations and rational market competition with the government's macroeconomic regulation and control is taking shape. Coal production and marketing has been decontrolled. Prices are now geared to market supply and demand. Breakthrough has been made in reforming the power system. Government and power industry, and power plants and power grids are now basically separated. The petroleum and natural gas trades have improved their operating efficiency as result of having basically integrated their upstream and downstream industries and their internal and external trade. People in society have invested more capital in the energy sector, and a pattern of energy enterprises - a pattern with the mainstay publicly-owned businesses coexisting with businesses of other forms of ownership - has been formed initially.

- Energy legislation has intensified. Under the direct leadership of the NPC and its Standing Committee, the Power Law, the Coal Law, and the Energy Conservation Law enacted during the Ninth Five-Year Plan period are playing an important role in developing and conserving energy. The law for exploiting renewable energy was promulgated this year. Meanwhile, the State Council has also formulated or revised a string of other energy laws and regulations. The promulgation and implementation of these laws and regulations are important steps made towards building a system energy laws.

Zeng Peiyan said the successes China has achieved in energy development have contributed to the country's steady and relatively fast social development. Facing these achievements, however, we must also be soberly aware that, along with the fast economic growth during the 10th Five-Year Plan period, and especially in the last three years of the period, the contradictions and problems accumulated over the years began to show and the state of energy supply has seriously handicapped economic and social development. We will earnestly approach these problems and will take all kinds of measures for handling them together.

Source: BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific

More News in this Category