While China is imposing tougher safety regulations, especially on its small coking coal mines, there is also growing demand for more sophisticated mining equipment.

Leading underground equipment supplier Joy has manufacturing bases in the country and has not seen any major falls in Chinese equipment demand since the global financial crisis started to kick in last year.

“The demand for reliable and high production longwall equipment is still a focus for sectors of the Chinese market,” Joy vice president of marketing Mark Finlay told ILN.

“This is expected to continue as China maintains its focus on delivering high production longwall mines.”

Rival major equipment supplier Bucyrus sees the Chinese equipment market as stronger than before.

“The Chinese industry is actually expanding in the high technology end of the market due to the consolidation of the coal industry and closure of small mines,” Bucyrus China region vice-president Andrew Richmond said.

“There are many large greenfield sites planned in northwest China. The longwall moving equipment market has expanded in 2009, and there is great interest in high-end shearers and AFCs.”

While there is competition from domestic equipment suppliers, both original equipment manufacturers are well positioned for the higher end of the market.

“The Chinese market we believe will continue to purchase equipment on a competitive basis, while maintaining their focus on reliability and high production equipment,” Finlay said.

Richmond said the longwall equipment manufacturing industry will grow some 40% this year and again at a similar rate in 2010. He also provided some insight into the domestic competition.

“The main imported equipment is high-end sophisticated equipment,” he said.

“This however is only a small percentage of the overall market. For example there are over 30,000 shields and 500 shearers manufactured in China per year currently.”

Industrea has not experienced any slowdown as it has had considerable success in penetrating the Chinese equipment market, with the bulk of its $110 million in new contracts for this financial year coming from deals made in the country.

Austrade’s China-based senior trade commissioner Jeff Turner credited the inroads made by Industrea to its knowledgeable sales team of local staff as well as its product offering.

“Industrea’s products have got unique performance and technology that can attract the attention of customers.

“For instance, directional gas drainage [equipment] manufactured by AMT, one of its subsidiaries, and the chock carrier by IME have unique performance that can meet specific customer requirements.”

Commenting on China’s mine development activity since the global financial crisis started to bite last year, Industrea managing director and chief executive officer Robin Levison told ILN the nation’s underground coal mining industry continues to expand on the back of government plans to boost long-term energy supplies.

“The Chinese government aims to increase coal production by around 30 per cent by 2015 to meet its growing energy needs, with the 2007 output of 2.5 billion tonnes forecast to reach more than 3.3 billion tonnes in six years,” he said.

“The country relies on coal for around 70 per cent of its energy and it remains the main source of fuel in China.”

He added that Beijing has introduced a tax on coal to fund the purchasing of safety equipment, bolstering demand for Industrea’s equipment.

In April the company landed a $20 million contract to supply six 80-tonne chock carriers and one 130t shearer carrier to China Shenhua Energy Company for one of the world’s largest longwall mines in Shandong Province.

“The equipment will allow the mine’s 7.3-metre coal seam to be mined in a single pass, without the need to use the more expensive and potentially more dangerous methods of top level caving or the two-pass method,” Levison said.

Austrade has not seen any significant change to mine development activity in China, but Turner said the nation’s steel industry had been significantly impacted by the global financial crisis.

On the equipment market he revealed some of the factors at play.

“Most coal mines in China, when considering where to source the equipment, will basically consider price and performance at the same time,” he said.

He said China was always looking to import equipment that domestic suppliers cannot manufacture.

“For instance, coal mining equipment suitable for thick coal beds are being sought by some coal mines.”

Turner said the majority of underground Chinese coal mines have large volumes of gas, with gas drainage and monitoring equipment being particularly sought after.

Industrea’s Levison agreed, saying sales of the company’s methane gas drainage system had been increasing in line with moves to improve safety in the Chinese industry.