[2017-03-23]









The Tokchon Area Coal-mining Complex, which was organized as the first coal-mining complex in 1977 in the country, is located in Tokchon, South Phyongan Province.
The Tokchon area in the middle inland region is formed of low and middle acid hills and has large coal deposits. And there are many coal mines in the area with a relatively long history of development in the western part of the country.
At the time of inauguration the complex had only several coal mines including Tokchon and Hyongbong coal mines, two geological survey teams and a small auxiliary unit. But now it has developed into a large coal mine which takes the lion’s share in the supply of coal to the Pukchang Thermal Power Complex, a leading power generator in the country.
It has established a uniform production control system over all its coal mines and applies various management strategies, for example, precedence to prospecting, concentration on tunnelling, fortification of tunnels, provision of material and technical conditions and building of its own maintenance and repair base, in line with the specific conditions to steadily increase coal production.
As a result, it cut 1.06 million tons more coal than the year before in the first year after its inauguration. In 1986 its total industrial output value grew to 157.7 percent, coal production 132.3 percent and main tunnelling speed 113 percent compared with those a decade before. In particular, it exceeded its annual targets it set higher than the previous ones in all indices, including 26.9 percent growth of the total industrial output value, 14 percent of coal production and 31.5 percent of main tunnelling, to be hailed as a model unit in the nation’s coal-mining industry last year when the 70-day and 200-day campaigns were mounted.
In the past four decades the complex secured hundreds of millions of tons of coal deposits, opened dozens of inclined pits and hundreds of new coal areas and cut a huge amount of coal till the end of last year to be sent to the Pukchang Thermal Power Complex and other economic sectors. In the course of this, a coal miner became twice labour hero, and 12 labour heroes and many others were awarded state decorations.
The complex holds fast to science and technology as the keystone of increased production.
Efficient technical innovation plans were widely invented such as the horizontal seam anthracite coal-cutting method which helps double coal extraction rate while halving the consumption of mine props to steadily increase production. Many of its employees enrolled in the study-while-working education system and became engineers, technicians and skilled coal miners. They solved lots of scientific and technical problems arising in making large tunnelling equipment, transporting coal by conveyor belt and through railway lines and digitizing management activities.
Amid vigorous mass technical innovation drive over 560 valuable technical innovation plans were introduced to promote the growth of production in the past decade alone. Such technical innovation plans as “conveyor belt transportation system control program” and “production and introduction of magnesia prop” took the first place at the 27th national IT exhibition and the 31st national sci-tech festival respectively last year.
Priority is always given to supply service for the employees.
Their working and living conditions have drastically been improved: a cultural hall, bathhouses, hostels and other cultural and welfare facilities have been built in all of its units. And production has grown at its goat, fish and mushroom farms and vegetable greenhouses.
In October 2014 the complex renovated the Tokchon duck farm in a modern fashion. With 16 duck houses, a hatching block, outdoor duck house, fodder and meat processing workshops in an area of 40 000 square metres, the farm produced a large amount of meat and eggs in the past two years and supplied them to coal miners, kindergartens and nurseries regularly.
The complex now focuses on carrying out the yearly plans in all indices till early December, while pushing the plan for the period of implementing the five-year strategy for national economic development.
“We will adopt a scientific management strategy and manage business to hit the production target for the period of implementing the five-year strategy for national economic development, which is over 1.6 times higher than that in 2015 ahead of schedule, thereby fully meeting the increasing demand for coal in different sectors,” says manger Ri Yong Chol.
March 28 marks the 40th anniversary of the complex.

By Pak Sung Gwang PT