China's 90 largest coal firms produce 2.25 billion tons of coal in the first 11 months of last year, up 7.6 percent year on year

China’s 90 largest coal companies produced 2.25 billion tons of coal in the first 11 months of last year, up 7.6 percent from a year ago as the nation bids to streamline the industry's structure, said the China National Coal Association today.

Production at the top 10 plants came to 1.35 billion tons to account for  60 percent of the total output. China Shenhua Energy Co was top by producing 403.55 million tons from January to November, followed by China National Coal Group Corp which produced 149.67 million tons and Shaanxi Coal and Chemical Industry Group’s 128.71 million tons.

China has cut the number of coal plants to 7,000 by the end of 2017 from 10,800 in 2015, coal giants are encouraged to merge to help enhance the industry’s competitiveness. Mergers and acquisitions have become the means to “help state-owned coal plants perform better,” China Business Journal said by quoting an unnamed analyst.

The merger of China Shenhua with China Guodian Corp last year created the nation’s largest power group. The Shanxi government, meanwhile, has shifted equities from 14 listed coal plants into an investment group to consolidate synergies among local coal companies.

China has built over 1,200 large-scale modern coal mines. Of them, 59 mines have the capacity of producing over 10 million tons per year and 47 mines are equipped with automated facilities, according to China Business Journal, a newspaper run by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

The key task, apart from cutting oversupply, as China continues to modernize its coal industry is to lift quality which includes streamlining its industrial structure and upgrading technologies, said Lian Weiliang, deputy director at the National Development and Reform Commission, the country's top economic planner.