From "Dominance of a Single Coal Mine" to "Integrating the World," observing the strategic choices behind the leap to a trillion-dollar enterprise size

CNR Jining, April 2 News (Reporter Cheng Lilong, Correspondent Ma Hui, Tian Chunyu)
The canal surges, and the tide of the era rises.
In January 2026, Jining Energy Development Group was officially reorganized and renamed Shandong Ronghui Group.
This state-owned enterprise with revenue surpassing 8B yuan, achieved a nearly tenfold growth curve in five years, completing a profound strategic transformation.
While outsiders marvel at this leap, a more worth-asking question is: Why did Shandong Ronghui choose a seemingly “counterintuitive” development path?

Shandong Ronghui Group (CNR, provided by Shandong Ronghui Group)

Why doesn’t Jining Energy Group bet on coal mine expansion?

Owning a capacity of tens of millions of tons of coal and annual profits and taxes exceeding 6 billion yuan, Ronghui’s coal sector remains the undisputed “ballast stone.”
But when asked why not continue to bet on coal mine expansion, Party Secretary and Chairman Zhang Guangyu said: “It’s not that coal mines don’t make money, but under current circumstances, for local state-owned enterprises, there’s too little room for error.”

Behind this is a clear survival account.
Building a modern mine with an annual capacity of 5 million tons costs tens of billions or even over 8B yuan, with a construction cycle of 5 to 8 years and a break-even period of over 10 years.
If geological faults, plummeting coal prices, or policy shifts occur, it could result in huge sunk costs.
Moreover, Jining’s local resources are limited, cross-regional mergers and acquisitions may face various historical burdens, and overseas mining purchases must also contend with policy and geopolitical risks.

“We ‘can’t afford’ the huge sunk costs of a single project,” Zhang Guangyu admitted.
Rather than putting all eggs in one basket, it’s better to safeguard the “bottom plate” of coal and use port logistics as the “steering wheel.”
The latter’s assets are divisible, risks are controllable, and results can be seen in three years. If successful, continue to invest in phase two; if not, cut losses in time.
This “small steps, quick pace, distributed betting” approach has allowed Ronghui to forge a steady transformation path.

Yangcheng Coal Power (CNR, provided by Shandong Ronghui Group)

Today’s coal sector is positioned as the starting point of circular economy.
At Yangcheng Coal Power under Ronghui Group, an HTDS intelligent waste rock sorting and cemented filling system is operating efficiently, achieving “no shafting of waste rock, full resource recovery, and zero ground subsidence.”
In Wenshang’s “Coal-Electric-Chemical” industrial park, the entire chain from clean coal power generation to high-end chemicals is already connected.
Coal is no longer the end product but the starting point of the industrial chain.

Not just port logistics and trade, but also from platform to industrial cluster.

By 2025, Jining Port’s cargo throughput will exceed 116 million tons, maintaining the top position among inland ports in Shandong Province and successfully entering the “billion-ton port” city ranks.
But Ronghui’s vision goes far beyond being a “port operator.”

“Ports determine how much cargo you can handle, trade determines how much cargo you can organize,” said Wang Chongjing, Deputy Party Secretary and General Manager of the group.
Without physical trade, ports can only passively wait for cargo within limited hinterlands; with trade, ports can proactively reach out, organizing sources of goods nationwide and even globally.

Liangshan Port (CNR, provided by Shandong Ronghui Group)

The rise of Liangshan Port confirms this logic.
Relying on the “golden cross” of Wari Railway and the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, Shanxi coal is transported by railway to this port for transshipment southward, reducing the cost of coal transportation by 60 yuan per ton.
In November 2025, Liangshan Port’s second phase project started, and after completion, its throughput capacity will reach 80 million tons, turning a “North of the Yangtze River billion-ton inland river port” from blueprint to reality.

But flow volume is just the starting point; turning flow into industry is the key.
At Longgong Port, the country’s first fully automated inland river container port operates efficiently, completing a container loading or unloading in just 2 minutes, with container throughput surpassing 380k TEUs in 2025, a 69% increase year-on-year.
More notably, the port has attracted industries such as warehousing, processing, and trade, accelerating cluster development, and a “front port—middle industry—back city” integrated development ecosystem is quietly taking shape.

Xinneng Shipbuilding (CNR, provided by Shandong Ronghui Group)

On the banks of Baima River in Zoucheng, Shandong’s first inland river new energy shipbuilding base is also bustling.
Partnering with CATL, CIMC, and Wuhan University of Technology, they are “building ships as if making new energy vehicles.”
By the end of 2025, Xinneng Shipbuilding had received over 200 intent orders, with nearly 100 ships delivered and put into operation, serving domestic waterways and successfully exporting to international shipping giants like CMA CGM of France.

“Ports provide low-cost logistics for manufacturing, manufacturing provides stable cargo sources for ports; shipbuilding reduces shipping costs, and shipping markets support shipbuilding,” said Zhang Guangyu.
This “port-trade-shipbuilding-integration” industry chain synergy has transformed Ronghui from a single logistics node into an organizer of an industrial ecosystem.

Longgong Port (CNR, provided by Shandong Ronghui Group)

Currently, Ronghui has planned and built eight billion-yuan-level parks, including Liangshan Port’s integrated logistics and industrial development zone, Longgong Port’s modern port-industry new city, and the new energy ship intelligent manufacturing industrial park.
The steel “precast food” processing mode launched by Smart New Steel and the “Canal’s First Granary” at Jizhou Grain Industry Park are turning port transportation advantages into manufacturing logistics cost advantages and industrial chain clustering benefits.

Taking advantage of the renaming, promoting organizational and mechanism reforms.

Strategic transformation’s greatest challenge is not direction but mechanism.
In January 2026, Jining Energy Development Group was officially reorganized and renamed Shandong Ronghui Group, which is not just a name change but a deep organizational restructuring.

“The core barrier for coal companies is resource monopoly; for trade and logistics companies, it’s service efficiency—two completely different logics.”
The former requires hierarchical control and safety first; the latter must empower frontline staff and enable rapid decision-making.
If coal mine managers used to “sit and collect money” are made to “risk their lives” in trade, the results are predictable.

Taking the opportunity of the renaming, a comprehensive mechanism reform was launched.
Organizational structure shifted from “control-oriented” to “empowerment-oriented,” with front-line trading teams granted significant autonomy, making decisions with real-time information; risk control and finance departments shifted from “approvers” to “service and supervision.”
Incentive mechanisms broke the “big pot rice” model, adopting a professional manager system, with “base salary + commission + uncapped bonuses,” deeply aligning core team interests with the company.
The risk control system upgraded from “safety production” to “financial/credit risk,” introducing professionals with financial and legal expertise to prevent accounts receivable overdue, fake warehouse receipts, and price arbitrage.

More importantly, internal collaboration mechanisms were reformed.
Ronghui established scientific internal assessment systems to ensure mutual benefit across the industrial chain.
Smart New Steel actively offers concessions to attract enterprises, with their products prioritized for export through the group’s port logistics system, forming a healthy internal industry cycle.
The self-developed “Ronghui Digital Exchange” platform connects ports, ships, warehouses, and trade into a unified network, allowing customers to place orders with one click, and automatically generating the most efficient, cost-effective, and shortest-route integrated logistics plans.

Jizhou Grain Industry Park (CNR, provided by Shandong Ronghui Group)

This mechanism reform ultimately unleashes human potential.
Anju Coal Mine’s female worker Song Wenqing, transferred to a new role, became a remote control expert at Longgong Port, setting an industry record of “completing a set of ship loading operations in two minutes.”
Former mining area chief Liu Jianguo, after leaving coal, took on a major role at Jizhou Grain Industry Park.
At Longgong Port, over 40% of employees have successfully transitioned from traditional industries.
Meanwhile, the group has flexibly introduced more than ten high-level talents with doctorates or above, nearly a hundred key business personnel, and accumulated over 800 patents.

“Transformation begins with changing mindsets,” said Zhang Guangyu.
“We must completely jump out of the ‘resource dependence’ comfort zone and establish the belief of ‘moving forward with new ideas and rising with intelligence’ across the entire group.”

From “single coal dominance” to “Ronghui connecting the world,” Ronghui’s billion-yuan leap is a deep practice of strategic vision, survival rationality, and organizational change.
Standing at a new starting point, this former traditional coal enterprise is moving forward with the spirit of “Ronghui connecting the seas and benefiting the world,” toward becoming a top domestic integrated energy group and a major commodity supply chain service provider.
The surging canal flows ceaselessly—an exemplary resource-based state-owned enterprise transformation in Jining is shining brightly in the new era’s tide.