A symposium on the development of the Shanxi Pacific Coalbed Methane (CBM) Research Institute was held by the Shanxi Department of Commerce in Taiyuan, capital of North China's Shanxi province, on Aug 3. 

Early in July, the institute was established in the Shanxi Transformation and Comprehensive Reform Demonstration Zone. It is China's first professional research institution serving the coalbed methane industry. 

The Shanxi Provincial Committee for Pacific Economic Cooperation invited three academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering to serve as special advisors, Zhang Suian, a senior coalbed methane research expert and doctoral supervisor at China University of Petroleum, to serve as president of the institute, three academicians from Russia and Australia and 29 leading Chinese experts in coalbed methane fields. 

The think tank of the institute has hired more than 130 senior engineers above the associate professor level to bolster innovation, and provide solutions and intelligence for the high-efficiency utilization and high-quality development of coalbed methane in Shanxi and all of China.

Shanxi has two major coalbed methane industrialization bases – the Qinshui basin and the eastern edge of Ordos basin – which account for nearly 96 percent of coalbed methane production in the country.