The Ordos Basin in western China has turned out to be a major energy resources center following the basins of Songliao in the northeast and Tarim in Xinjiang.

The Ordos Basin, which covers part of the provinces and autonomous regions of Shaanxi, Gansu, Ningxia, Inner Mongolia and Shanxi, has a total area of about 400,000 sq km.

The basin has rich coal reserves of 1,975.27 billion tons within a depth of 2,000 meters, and 656.1 billion tons within 1, 000 meters, said Wang Shuangming, director of the Shaanxi provincial coal field and geological bureau and head of a group for the study of the Ordos Basin.

In the early 1980s, the giant Shenfu Dongsheng Coal Field was built in the boundaries between Shaanxi and Inner Mongolia, and the state invested tens of billions yuan to develop the Shenhua Project which involves the development of coal mines, power generation, railways, ports and shipping.

The latest statistics show the Shenfu Dongsheng Coal Field produced 60 million tons of raw coal and exported 18 million tons in 2002, becoming one of China's largest quality coal production and export bases.

The Changqing Oil Field, discovered in northern Shaanxi in the early 1990s, now provides 4.75 billion cubic meters of natural gas a year to 15 cities in north China including Beijing, Tianjin, Shijiazhuang, Xi'an and Yinchuan.

Gas reserves totaling 1,233.7 billion cubic meters have been verified in the Ordos Basin, said Wang Daofu, general manager of the Changqing Oil Field Company, which also runs a complete gas field with reserves topping 602.5 billion cubic meters in Inner Mongolia.

Under the plan of China's "west-to-east gas transmission project," launched in October last year, gas supply to Shanghai and Nanjing will start in October this year.

Wang said the Changqing Oil Field Company had a plan to produce 20 billion cubic meters of natural gas a year, which would ensure long-term gas supplies to Beijing, Shanghai and other cities.

The areas of Inner Mongolia, Ningxia and Shaanxi in the Ordos Basin have been chosen as bases for the Project of Sending Electricity from West to East.

Inner Mongolia and Beijing have jointly established two power plants, with an installed capacity of 660,000 kw and 1.2 million kw, respectively. The two power plants can offer an annual electricity supply totaling 39 billion kwh to the east.

A group of other power plants, each with an installed capacity ranging from millions of kilowatts to tens of millions of kilowatts are under construction in the autonomous regions and provinces in the Ordos Basin. One of them is a joint project between Shaanxi and Shandong provinces, which has a planned installed capacity of 22.8 million kw, supported by coal mines with an annual production capacity of over 60 million tons.

The Shenhua Group has launched a coal liquefaction project which is expected to produce five million tons of refined oil annually by 2005.