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A coal-fired power station in central China's Henan Province. /VCG
Energy supplies including coal and oil were largely sufficient in China as a majority of mines and refineries resumed operation amid the COVID-19 outbreak, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said Sunday.
By Saturday, the coal sector was running at 76.5 percent of capacity, which reached 3.17 billion tons. Output came in at 8.33 million tons on the single day of February 22, doubling the production on February 1, said Lu Junling, head of the National Energy Administration's coal department at a press conference on Sunday.
As of February 20, coal stockpiles at the country's plants were adequate for 27 days of consumption, while those in Hubei, the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak, were sufficient for 54 days as of Saturday, Lu said.
Stocks of both refined oil and natural gas remained high, with oil stockpiles exceeding 21.1 million tons by Friday.
The NDRC pledged to closely monitor supply-demand changes in the energy sector as demand is set to pick up with more business restoring activities.
In order to support enterprises' resumption of work, the NDRC announced Saturday to lower enterprises' electricity price by five percent from February 1 to June 30, whereas enterprises in energy-intensive industries were excluded from the cut.
It is estimated that the price-reduction policy would benefit about 50 million users and reduce companies' power utilization cost by 59 billion yuan (8.4 billion U.S. dollars) during that period.
(With input from Xinhua)
