IoT & industrial automation

Chinese miner completes "intelligent retrofits," expects all 17 mines automated by 2027

At one mine, production shifts had 40% fewer people than before.

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Cbot Crew

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Rail-mounted inspection robot hanging from the roof of a lit underground mine tunnel, with red equipment along the wall, at Shanxi Coking Coal's Malan mine.
An inspection robot in a Malan mine tunnel. Photo: Shanxi Coking Coal

Shanxi Coking Coal Energy Group (山西焦煤), a Shenzhen-listed coal miner based in Taiyuan, in northern China's Shanxi province, says most of its 17 mines have finished what it calls intelligent retrofits and the rest should be done in 2027. Its reply to an investor gave no count. The company's own reports counted 12 such mines at the end of 2025, out of the 17 it had then.

The retrofits aim for "fewer people" in mining and tunneling and "unmanned" machinery and transport, the company said in its 2025 sustainability report. All 12 mines passed provincial acceptance checks, and four were rated at the intermediate level.

At its Malan mine in Shanxi, upgraded since 2018, the shearer that cuts the coal repeats a remembered cutting pattern and the roof supports follow it automatically, the report says. Belt conveyors, substations and the main drainage system run unattended, inspection robots patrol the belts and drainage, and electric locomotives are driven remotely.

Staff in a surface control room there watch the coal face on screens and start the shearer with a button, Science and Technology Daily (科技日报) reported after a visit in February 2025. Hao Yirui (郝以瑞), who heads a mining district there, told the paper that production shifts had 40% fewer people than before. He said output per shift was more than 60% above conventional mining. The company had 37,554 employees in 2025. Company-wide headcount has held roughly steady, at 36,284 in 2023 and 37,675 in 2024, according to its annual reports.

The company's 2027 date matches the year by which all of Shanxi's coal mines are expected to be largely automated, the paper reported in April 2025. Nationwide, China had 1,066 such mines at the end of 2025, holding more than 65% of coal-mining capacity, according to an annual report by the China Coal Industry Association (中国煤炭工业协会) as reported by China Energy News (中国能源报). A 2026-2030 coal plan from the National Development and Reform Commission (国家发展改革委) and the National Energy Administration (国家能源局) sets a goal of raising that share to 75%, China Energy News said.

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Editor: Ian Lamont

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