The office of the State Administration of Coal Mine Safety ("SACMS") has recently issued the Measures for Determining the Level of Mashgas in Coal Mines (Draft for Comment) (the "Draft for Comment") to seek opinions from the units concerned by November 23, 2017.
The Draft for Comment introduces a new paragraph to Article 2, stating that "coal mine enterprises (coal mines), administrative departments for coal mine safety, administrative departments for the coal mine industry, supervisory organs for coal mine safety, and relevant intermediate agencies shall abide by these Measures". Meanwhile, according to the Draft for Comment, the revised Article 11 now partially reads as "for a new coal mine to be built, the level of mashgas therein shall be estimated at the design stage by taking comprehensive consideration of different factors, including geological survey materials, the estimated amount of mashgas emission, the levels of mashgas in nearby coal mines, evaluation results of coal seam outburst risks; and the estimated level of mashgas for such new coal mine shall be used as the basis for its design; and the revised Article 15 in part now reads as "If the exploitation goes down deep to a coal seam, the depth of which is considered as the threshold where nearly coal mines will become outburst, such coal seam shall not be considered as a non-outburst coal seam. A coal mine that is determined as a non-outburst coal mine shall not be identified as a low-mashgas coal mine either". Furthermore, the Draft for Comment brings changes to some other articles, such as Article 14 and Article 17.