Datang International Power Generation aims to become entirely self-sufficient in coal supply by 2010 to shield itself from the impact of spiralling coal prices and a power tariff freeze.
Chairman Zhai Ruoyu said the largest electricity producer for the Beijing-Tianjin-Datang region aimed to raise annual capacity to 140 million tonnes of coal by 2014, up from 50 million tonnes for 2010 and 10 million tonnes this year.
This year's consumption is estimated to be 70 million tonnes.
'We are building Datang International into an integrated energy company that can withstand volatile market conditions,' Mr Zhai said.
Before he unveiled this coal strategy, analysts had been lowering their forecasts on the company's net profit for this year, taking Beijing's resolve to clamp down on a 12-year high rate of inflation to mean a tariff freeze for most, if not all of the year. The last tariff increase was in July 2006.
According to Thomson Financial, the average profit forecast of 17 brokerage analysts for this year has been cut 7.77 per cent to 3.57 billion yuan (HK$3.96 billion) in the past month.
Merrill Lynch analysts Joseph Jacobelli and Vincent Chow cut their forecast 35 per cent to 2.86 billion yuan earlier this month, citing flat plant utilisation and a 14.2 per cent rise in coal cost per unit of output.