TAIYUAN, Sept. 23 (Xinhua) — China’s coal-rich province of Shanxi saw its raw coal output surpass 813 million tonnes in the first eight months of 2024, local authorities said Sunday. The coal output in Shanxi, the country’s largest coal-producing region, accounted for 26.6 percent of China’s total during the period, according to the provincial statistics bureau. To strengthen energy security, Shanxi has been upgrading its coal industry. In 2023, the province established 118 intelligent coal mines and introduced smart technology to 1,491 mining faces. By 2025, all large-scale and high-risk coal mines in the province are expected to complete intelligent transformations. In 2023, Shanxi produced over 1.37 billion tonnes of coal, and it has set a production target of about 1.3 billion tonnes for 2024. According to a report released by the Ministry of Natural Resources, by the end of 2022, the country’s total coal reserves reached 207 billion tonnes, with Shanxi holding around 48.3 billion tonnes of these reserves.