China's energy-saving campaign saves 150 mln tons of coal

A national energy-saving campaign involving over 1,000 companies managed to save equivalent to 150 million tons of coal from 2006 to 2010, China's top economic planner said Sunday. The companies that consumed half the energy of the industrial sector, or one-third of all China's energy, saved more than the 100-million-ton target set for the five year period, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said. In the past five years, the companies cut down more than 30 percent of energy consumption per unit of production of alumina, ethylene, and caustic soda, and over 10 percent for crude oil processing, electrolytic aluminum and cement, the NDRC said. China launched the campaign to curb energy consumption in 2006, the first year of its 11th Five-Year Plan, among nine energy-gobbling industries, including steel and iron, non-ferrous metal, coal, oil and petrochemicals as well as chemicals and construction materials. The country aims to save equivalent to 670 million tons of coal from 2011 to 2015.