Direction of Industrial Policy Adjustment for the Development of Coalbed Methane in China

Since the Eleventh Five-Year Plan, the Chinese government has issued a series of policies to support the development of the coalbed methane(CBM)(coalmine gas) industry. These policies concern prices,taxes,subsidies, resource management, and foreign cooperation, and the Chinese government strongly promoted the smooth start of China’s CBM industry. It is difficult to develop CBM in China becauseof the low-output of single wells. Meanwhile, since CBM’s sale price is also low, the benefits of development are poor. Coupled with the high cost of capital, poor foreign cooperation management and other adverse factors, the coalbed methane production targets in the two five-year plans have failed one after another. In order to solve the difficult problems restricting the development of the CBM industry and to accelerate its development, this paper interprets the current main policies and analyzes their implementation and outcomes. The results show that: China’s CBM industry will issue policies to promote the "three gas production" in coal measures and address the lag in the development of blocks for foreign coopera tion, financial support will be taken for exploration and development, further raising the sale price of CBM, and adjustment will be oriented towards making continued efforts to tackle key scientific and technological problems.