The Globe and Mail reports in its Thursday edition that a Chinese group is making a $1-billion bet on coal in British Columbia to secure a key raw material for its steel making industry. The Globe's David Ebner writes a consortium of Chinese companies, including Shougang Group, one of the country's top steelmakers, plans to develop three underground coal mines in northeast B.C., a coal-rich region that fell on hard times in the 1990s but is now booming again. Shougang's move to take a direct position in Canadian mines represents a new chapter in the push among the world's steelmakers to secure long-term supply of the commodities that go into making steel. Metallurical coal, the type found in rugged northeastern B.C., is one ingredient. The Chinese consortium's domestic arm is Canadian Kailuan Dehua Mines Co. Ltd., officially formed in early 2010. China joins a crowded list of proposals for additional mines, including Teck Resources' plan to resurrect the Quintette mine, closed in 2000. Quintette could be once more producing three million tonnes of coal by 2013. "It's definitely a boom time. The northeast is really going great guns right now," said Pierre Gratton at the Mining Association of B.C.