Blizzards and Coal Shortages Strain China's Rail Network
BEIJING — After blizzards disrupted coal deliveries, acute electricity shortages across a swath of central and southern China have exposed the fragility of transportation networks in the world's fastest-growing major economy.
In addition to causing chaos at transportation hubs as up to 200 million migrant workers and other travelers try to return home for the Lunar New Year festival next week, the ice and snow have also restricted coal shipments along critical rail arteries feeding power stations in the southeast, China's densely populated manufacturing heartland.
Food prices are increasing in major cities, as distribution bottlenecks hamper deliveries of vegetables and meat, the official Xinhua news agency reported Thursday.
In a sign of the Communist Party's nervousness about widespread resentment just before the country's most important holiday, senior leaders, including Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, visited train stations to assure frustrated travelers that the authorities were working to solve the delays.
The huge crowds waiting in freezing cold at some railway stations in southern China began to clear Thursday, the state news media reported, as rail service to central and inland provinces became more frequent.
But electricity shortages were expected to continue after supplies were disrupted to 17 provinces, or about half the country, in recent weeks.
The provinces of Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hunan, Anhui and Jiangsu had the worst problems, with more than 30 million people affected by blackouts or brownouts, according to government estimates. Steel and aluminum output is also expected to suffer, analysts said.
"I think the current weather-related problems have major ramifications for the manufacturing sector and therefore the economy, let alone the fact you have a lot of unhappy people," said Victor Shum, an analyst based in Singapore for the energy consultants Purvin & Gertz.
China mined about 2.5 billion tons of coal last year, according to government statistics, and burning that fuel supplies more than 80 percent of the country's electricity.
Despite the severe air pollution in urban and industrial centers and international pressure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, most analysts expect China's coal consumption to increase for decades if rapid economic growth continues.
The bulk of China's coal is mined in the western provinces of Shaanxi and Shanxi and the northwestern region of Inner Mongolia. But many coal customers are clustered in the industrialized southeastern and central coastal provinces, so coal must be hauled on China's vast but overextended rail network.
More than 40 percent of rail capacity is devoted to moving coal, and the authorities have been investing heavily in new lines and cargo-handling facilities in an attempt to keep up with demand.
Despite these efforts, China has suffered persistent power shortages in industrial centers for more than five years as electricity output has failed to meet the demand from a booming economy.
This problem became much worse when heavy snow and ice over the past two weeks damaged electricity grids and cut power supplies to the rail networks in central China that carry the bulk of coal to power stations.
Some power stations in southern China were operating with only a few days of fuel in reserve, government officials said.
Fuel stocks at power plants operated by the State Grid Corporation of China, which account for more than 10 percent of the country's installed generation capacity, fell to record lows, the official news media reported.
Officials warned this week that coal supplies could be further hit when some mines closed over the Lunar New Year holiday.
In response, the authorities have diverted extra rail cars to moving coal and sharply increased the volume shipped south by sea from the major northern port of Qinhuangdao.
In an effort to limit shortages, the government last week ordered the port authorities to halt coal exports for two months.
Some analysts have said that government policy had contributed to the power shortages.
Trying to contain rising inflation and to avoid antagonizing consumers, the authorities have capped the prices that utilities can charge for power, even as coal prices have been soaring. Without the incentive of adequate profits, power producers have been reluctant to increase output, analysts say.
"If there had not been this mismatch, power producers, particularly in Guangdong, might have been more aggressive in importing coal," Mr. Shum, the analyst in Singapore, said.