OREANDA-NEWS. March 15, 2011. Sasol Ltd. (SOL)’s planned coal-to-liquids project with China Shenhua Group Corp., set to become the nation’s biggest such facility, received approval from the Chinese environmental ministry, according to a list on the ministry’s website.

Johannesburg-based Sasol halted development of the USD 10 billion plant because it was awaiting state approval, the company said in an e-mailed statement in February. The project requires final approval from the National Development and Reform Commission, China’s highest economic planning body.

Sasol and Shenhua submitted an application to the NDRC in 2009 to build a 94,000 barrel-a-day plant to convert coal into motor fuel in the Ningxia Hui autonomous region. Sasol expected a review to be completed on Aug. 24 and said the commission was poised to make its recommendations to the nation’s energy administrator by the end of 2010.

In 2008, Sasol aborted a plan to build another facility in Shaanxi province as China curbed investment in energy-intensive industries. The company operates the world’s largest coal-to- fuels plant at Secunda in South Africa, where it converts more than 40 million metric tons of the raw material annually.

Shenhua is China’s only producer of fuels from coal and the nation’s largest coal supplier. Shares in its listed unit, China Shenhua Energy Co., rose the most in more than two years in Shanghai today after it won approval to develop a field in northern China that may boost annual output by 45 percent.