A reporter recently learned from the New Era Coal Industry Safe and High-Efficiency Coal Mine High-Quality Construction Promotion Conference organized by the China National Coal Association that China has currently built 1,238 safe and high-efficiency coal mines. These mines account for about 30% of the total number of coal mines nationwide, contributing approximately 50% of the coal industry’s urban employment, 70% of coal production, and 80% of profits.

It has been over 30 years since the first batch of 12 high-yield and high-efficiency mines were named in 1993. “Over the past 30 years, safe and high-efficiency coal mines have flourished, transitioning from scale expansion to quality enhancement, continuously pioneering new paths for Chinese-style modernization in coal mine construction through exploration and practice,” said Liang Jiakun, President of the China National Coal Association.

The conference noted that the “14th Five-Year Plan” period is a critical phase for the coal industry’s green and low-carbon transformation and high-quality development. The construction of safe and high-efficiency coal mines has deeply implemented the new energy security strategy, shouldering heavy responsibilities during critical periods of energy supply and taking proactive actions during reform and攻坚 stages.

At the conference, the *Annual Report on the Construction of Safe and High-Efficiency Coal Mines in China (2024)* was released. Twenty new technologies and achievements in safe and high-efficiency coal mines were showcased, including complete sets of equipment for intelligent washing and storage of miners’ workwear, integrated “underground, surface, cloud” intelligent excavation technology, and insulation fault detectors for coal mine power cables. The conference also recognized safe and high-efficiency groups (mining areas) and safe and high-efficiency coal mines for the 2022–2023 period, as well as safe and high-efficiency coal mines with raw coal efficiency exceeding 100 tons per worker, million-ton coal mining teams, and kilometer excavation teams.

“Currently, China has built a number of internationally advanced, modern large-scale underground coal mines, forming the world’s largest coal technology and equipment R&D and manufacturing system,” said Kang Hongpu, Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and Director of the Science and Technology Committee of China Coal Technology & Engineering Group. He noted that in the future, it is necessary to further improve the reliability of automation and intelligent mining systems to achieve normal operation.

Sun Shouren, Vice President of the China National Coal Association, stated that in the new era, the evaluation criteria for the construction of safe and high-efficiency coal mines will no longer be limited to dimensions such as safety, efficiency, and profitability. Instead, they will adhere to the development principles of “ecological priority, green and low-carbon, safety and intelligence,” and the development goals of “win-win across the entire industrial chain, synergy across the full lifecycle, and integration of all production factors.” This is the necessary path to achieving the goal of high-quality construction of safe and high-efficiency coal mines.

(Source: China Coal News)