I. Why Anhui Merits Separate Study
Among China's eastern provinces, Anhui is one of the few that simultaneously hosts large-scale coking, coal chemicals, and petroleum refining operations. This configuration is not the result of overlapping policy incentives — it is the long-term accumulation of the Huai River coalfield resource endowment.
The two Huai coalfields (Huainan and Huaibei mining districts) represent the most concentrated coal reserves in East China, accounting for 85% of the region's total. Huainan alone holds over 20 billion tonnes of proven reserves above the one-kilometre depth horizon, with coal grades spanning gas coal, fat coal, coking coal, and lean coal — making it an excellent source for blended coking feedstock. At the same time, Anqing City on the Yangtze River has established Anhui's only large-scale petroleum refinery. These two industrial threads form the backbone of Anhui's fuel processing sector.
II. Geographic Cluster Distribution
Anhui's fuel processing industry is organized around three nodes:
The Huaibei Coking Cluster centres on Linyi Town, Suixi County, Huaibei City. Linyi hosts one of East China's largest independent coking bases, operated by subsidiaries of Huaibei Mining Holdings — Linyi Coking Co., Ltd. and Tanxin Technology Co., Ltd. Proximity to East China rail networks enables coke delivery to steel mills across Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shanghai.
The Huainan Modern Coal Chemical Industrial Park is located in Panji District, Huainan City, with a planned total area of approximately 95 square kilometres. Designated as a national modern coal chemical demonstration base, it anchors on Phase I of Zhong'an United Coal Chemical as its cornerstone project, with downstream chains in C4/C5 utilization and polyolefin deep processing. As of the survey period, the park had signed 30 projects totalling over RMB 40 billion in investment, with 11 already in production.
The Anqing Petrochemical Base is situated in Anqing Hi-Tech Development Zone, operated by Sinopec's Anqing Branch. It is a large-scale refining and chemicals integrated enterprise and the only major crude oil processing base in Anhui.
III. Leading Enterprise Landscape
Huaibei Mining Holdings (600985) is Anhui's largest listed coal chemical company by scale. Its coal chemical operations pivot on two products — coke and methanol. As of March 2024, installed coke capacity stood at 4.4 million tonnes per year and methanol capacity at 0.9 million tonnes per year. The 2023 annual report recorded coke output of 3.77 million tonnes, coal chemical segment revenue of RMB 11.144 billion, and group-wide revenue of RMB 73.387 billion, with net profit attributable to parent of RMB 6.225 billion. Average coke selling price fell approximately RMB 570/tonne year-on-year to around RMB 2,330/tonne, compressing margins while production volumes continued to grow. Source: Huaibei Mining 2023 Annual Report (Shanghai Stock Exchange disclosure).
Zhong'an United Coal Chemical (a joint venture between Sinopec and Wannan Coal & Power Group) is the flagship project of the Huainan park, designed to produce 1.7 million tonnes per year of methanol and convert it into 350,000 tonnes per year of LLDPE and 350,000 tonnes per year of polypropylene. The first batch of polyolefin products rolled off the line in August 2018, marking Anhui's breakthrough in coal-to-olefins production. In 2024, Zhong'an produced a cumulative 2.1319 million tonnes of MTO-grade methanol and 729,900 tonnes of polyolefins, both record highs since startup. Source: Sina Finance, Sinopec News (January 2025).
Anqing Petrochemical (Sinopec Anqing Branch) is the sole ultra-large-scale petroleum refining entity in Anhui. Over 50 years of operation, crude processing capacity has expanded from under one million tonnes to 8 million tonnes per year. In June 2023, the world's first heavy-oil catalytic cracking RTC unit was successfully started at Anqing, processing the same crude volume while dramatically reducing fuel output in favour of light olefins and aromatics feedstocks. This marks the refinery's formal pivot from a fuel-type to a fuel-plus-chemicals type configuration. New downstream capacity includes 300,000 tonnes per year of polypropylene and 400,000 tonnes per year of ethylbenzene/styrene. Source: Sina Finance (July 2023), China Chemical Industry News.
IV. Supply Chain Structure
Upstream: Two-Huai coal resources are the starting point for the entire chain. The base operated by Huaihe Energy Holdings (formerly Huainan Mining Group) is one of China's 14 designated 100-million-tonne coal production bases. Anhui's raw coal output in 2022 was approximately 113 million tonnes, providing stable feedstock for coking and coal chemicals operations. Crude oil arrives at Anqing via Yangtze River waterway and pipeline, benefiting from Anqing's riverside location.
Downstream: Coke is shipped primarily to steel mills across East China — the enormous steel production capacity of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shanghai provides a stable regional demand anchor. Coal-derived polyolefins feed plastic fabrication, packaging, and automotive parts sectors. Aromatics and olefins feedstocks from Anqing Petrochemical extend downstream into synthetic fibre, rubber, and coatings value chains.
V. Challenges and Transition Directions
Anhui's fuel processing industry faces three structural pressures.
The first is price cyclicality. Coke prices fell sharply in 2023 relative to the previous year; Huaibei Mining's coal chemical gross profit dropped approximately 41% year-on-year. Managing cash flow through commodity price swings is a persistent challenge for capital-intensive operators.
The second is carbon constraints. Coal chemicals and refining carry higher carbon intensity than most manufacturing sectors. National policy — including the 2023 guidance on healthy development of modern coal chemicals — requires new projects to locate within industrial parks and meet stricter environmental review thresholds. As China's carbon market expands, compliance costs for these facilities will continue to rise.
The third is product structure pressure. Traditional coke demand is tightly correlated to domestic steel output, which is expected to plateau or contract in the medium term. This is driving coking enterprises to extend into fine chemicals and new materials. Both Anqing Petrochemical and Huaibei Mining have begun downstream product-mix transitions, though market validation for higher-value products will take time.
The 2023 national guidance on modern coal chemicals explicitly encourages demonstration projects coupling coal chemicals with green power and green hydrogen. For a resource-rich province like Anhui, this opens a potential pathway to gradually reduce fossil carbon intensity by using coal-derived energy as a bridge to hydrogen-enabled feedstock production. Whether that pathway proves technically and economically viable at scale remains an open question for the decade ahead.
Sales teams researching upstream supply opportunities within Anhui's petroleum, coal and fuel processing sector can access factory directories and key-contact information segmented by region and sub-industry through Tianxia Gongchang, shortening the customer development cycle.
Anhui's fuel processing sector matters not only as a local energy supply asset, but as a critical feedstock node for East China's manufacturing base. The Huai coalfields ensure large-scale chemical operators will remain anchored here for the long term. Whether the transition from fuel to materials production unfolds smoothly is the central story line worth tracking over the next decade.
Data Sources
Tianxia Gongchang ( — Anhui petroleum, coal and fuel processing factory directory and industry data Huaibei Mining Holdings 2023 Annual Report (Shanghai Stock Exchange disclosure, stock code 600985) Sina Finance, Sinopec News: Zhong'an United Coal Chemical 2024 production data (January 2025) Sina Finance, China Chemical Industry News: Anqing Petrochemical refinery restructuring project (May–July 2023) Huainan Municipal People's Government official website: Anhui (Huainan) Modern Coal Chemical Industrial Park planning and investment data Anhui Provincial Bureau of Statistics: 2023 National Economic and Social Development Statistical Communiqué National Development and Reform Commission: Notice on Promoting Healthy Development of Modern Coal Chemical Industry (NDRC Industry [2023] No. 773)