China began building the world's largest base to develop technologies for liquefying coal in Tianjin Municipality, north China.

Costing a total investment of 150 million yuan (US$18 million), the base is a national priority project funded by the Shenhua Group, a coal conglomerate based in the city of Tianjin.

Germany, Japan and the United States have conducted similar researches in coal-liquefying technologies, but none put their technological results into commercial operation.

China-developed technologies, an outcome of the past 20-plus years' research in the field, have a much higher rate of oil yield from coal liquefying, or up to 65 percent, experts acknowledged.

In China's related technologies, coal is first crumbled and mixed with heavy oil into coal slurry which is put under high-temperature, and intense, high-pressure conditions for reaction with catalyzers, and finally hydrogen is injected to reactant to yield liquefied oil. This oil is crude and can be processed into gasoline, diesel and aero fuel, according to experts.

The Shenhua Group will use coal produced in Dongsheng coalfield in Shenfu county in northwest China's Shaanxi province to test and build the world's first commercial production line with a daily handing capacity of 6,000 tons of coal by 2005 in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, which will have an annual output of over 5 million tons of various oil products.

(Xinhua News Agency October 4, 2003)