North China's Shanxi Province, the country's largest coal producer has proved additional coal reserves of 8.8 billion tons since 2004, said local Shanxi Evening News on Friday.

The overall coal reserves of the province amount to more than 260 billion tons, an official with the Shanxi Provincial Bureau of State Land and Resources was quoted as saying.

With an estimated annual coal reserve consumption of 1.2 billion tons, supply to the country's coal industry can be guaranteed for at least 200 years, the official said.

The annual coal production of Shanxi is 580 million tons.

According to the statistics released on the bureau's website, the newly found coal reserves added up to 8.45 billion tons from 2004 to 2006.

(Xinhua News Agency October 27, 2007)