China bans coal-chemical project expansions for three years

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SHANGHAI (ICIS news)--China’s government has banned expansions of existing coal-chemical projects and has restricted the building of small-scale facilities for the next three years to curb overcapacity, an official source from the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said on Monday.

"[The] restricted coal-chemical sectors mainly include traditional ones such as coal-to-coke, calcium carbide, coal-to-methanol and synthetic ammonia," the source said in Mandarin.

Under the plans, during the next three years the government would only allow synthetic ammonia projects with a capacity of more than 300,000 tonnes/year, while coal-to-methanol projects would need to have a capacity of more than 1m tonnes/year, the source added.