Shenhua builds China's largest opencast mine

Shenhua Group, China’s top producer, has just finished construction work on the largest opencast mine in the country. The newly built 20 million ton-per-year Haerwusu mine is located in Inner Mongolia’s Erdos region, which itself has 149.6 billion tons of resources. The mine covers 67.17 square kilometers; the main seam is an average thickness of 20.01 meters. Work began on the mine in May 2006 and has taken a year and a half to complete. The total cost of the project is estimated at approximately seven billion yuan (US$1.02 billion). (November 25, 2008)