compare three Asian countries ; Pakistan, Bangladesh, India in terms of quality of their coal reserves with example.
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Asia has enormous reserves of coal, amounting to nearly three-fifths of the world’s total, but they are unevenly distributed. The largest reserves are found in Siberia, the Central Asian republics, India, and especially China; Indonesia, Japan, and North Korea have smaller but nevertheless economically important reserves. China has chiefly high-grade coal reserves. Every province has at least one coalfield, but the largest reserves are in Shanxi and Shaanxi in the Ordos River basin in the north. Sichuan, Shandong, and the Northeast (Fushun, in Liaoning province) are old coal-producing regions with good reserves, and a coal-mining area with large deposits has been developed in central Anhui, north of the Yangtze River (Chang Jiang). Mines in Ningxia and Gansu supply northern industrial plants, but their reserves are not clearly known. The long-known reserves in western Hebei are being exploited.
Enormous coal reserves are found in North and Central Asia, and some 200 fields have been worked throughout the region. Most of the known coal supplies of North Asia lie in Siberia, but the total extent and quality of Siberian deposits have not been fully explored. The Ural Mountains are not rich in coal, but there are some small fields of lower-grade coals. The Kuznetsk Basin in south-central Siberia has become a giant producer. The Minusinsk Basin in the central region of western Siberia, the Kansk region to the north along the Trans-Siberian Railway, the Cheremkhovo area west of Lake Baikal in south-central Siberia, and the Bureya River basin in the southeast also are the major areas of Siberian production. Many smaller deposits have been worked to supply local regions, such as the small and scattered fields north of Vladivostok and on Sakhalin Island in the Far East. The Qaraghandy fields in east-central Kazakhstan contain the largest deposits in Central Asia; during the Soviet period, however, mining was not expanded there after sources of better coals began to be worked in western Siberia. The Ekibastuz field, north of the main Qaraghandy fields, also is a producer of high-quality coal. Smaller deposits also are worked in Uzbekistan, as well as in the valleys of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. The Chinese and Indian economies in particular have depended heavily on coal, and their coal consumption has grown along with their industrial economies since the late 20th century. Concern has been raised by environmentalists about the possibility that increasing coal consumption in these two countries would raise global atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.