China is replacing Middle East oil with Xinjiang coal. What does it mean for the world?

As the Iran" class="entity-link entity-event" data-entity-id="126039" data-entity-type="event">war in Iran disrupts global oil and chemical supplies, China’s coal-heavy energy sector is seizing an unprecedented opportunity. Dannie Peng visited the Changji Hui Autonomous Prefecture in northern Xinjiang – one of China’s four major bases for large-scale, modern coal-chemical production. In the second of a two-part series, she discovers how China is leveraging coal-chemicals" class="entity-link entity-topic" data-entity-id="131825" data-entity-type="topic">coal chemicals to offset oil shocks.It is late April, and northern Xinjiang is already gripped by scorching heat. Salt flats stretch to the horizon, barren and lifeless, until the monotony breaks at Wucaiwan – a boomtown in Changji Hui Autonomous Prefecture that has risen swiftly on the back of energy development.Here, the rhythmic roar of machinery shatters the long-standing silence of the Gobi Desert. Dozens of industrial giants cluster tightly in this landscape, including open-pit mines with annual outputs in the tens of millions of tonnes, massive thermal power plants and sprawling chemical enterprises.