Drought-affected area, crop impact limited
THE total area in China affected by drought was limited and grain prices would remain basically stable, said Chen Xiwen, the State Council s deputy director of agricultural affairs.
Winter wheat only accounted for 22 percent of China s total grain output and even at the height of the drought only a third of the crops was affected, said Chen, who was speaking at a news conference at the National People s Congress in Beijing. After rain and irrigation conditions had been relieved further, the impact could be minimized, Chen said.
Top Qilu Bank executives sacked on scandal
CHINA has sacked the chairman, president and chief supervisor of Qilu Bank, a small lender 20 percent owned by Commonwealth Bank of Australia, after a scandal linked to a commercial paper fraud that domestic media say could amount to 1.5 billion yuan.
The personnel unit of Jinan Communist Party committee said in a notice in Jinan Daily that the sacked bank chairman Qiu Yunzhang and president Guo Tao would be disciplined accordingly after police probes into the scandal close.
Coal output could reach 4b tons by 2015
CHINA could be producing as much as 4 billion tons of coal by 2015, up from an estimated 3.2 billion last year, the head of one of China s leading coal firms said Friday.
Wu Yongping, chairman of Datong Coal Mine Group, the country s third biggest producer, said despite efforts to reduce its dependence on coal, it would continue to play a dominant role in China s energy mix.
Kunlun Energy turns coke-oven gas into LNG
CHINA Natural Gas Company, run by PetroChina unit Kunlun Energy, has started building a plant in Inner Mongolia to chill off-gas from steel mills and coking plants into cleaner liquefied natural gas .
The first of its kind in China, the plant will start producing in August next year 500,000 tons of LNG per year from off-gas captured from the coal mining and metal-working industries in Wuhai city, said Black & Veatch, a U.S. firm contracted to do engineering and procurement work for the project.
