Dr. Lü Guo, Founder and Chairman of Suntrans Language Translation Co., Ltd., was invited by the School of International Studies, University of International Business and Economics (UIBE), on September 4, 2026, to deliver a special empowering training session on professional English for the coal chemical industry. The audience consisted of 60 master’s and doctoral core professionals from China Xuyang Group Co., Ltd. (Xuyang Group).
Hosted on the teaching platform of the School of International Studies, UIBE, the training targeted senior technical staff of enterprises. It focused on pain points of cross-border language application in the coal chemical sector, integrating specialized industrial expertise with practical English skills.
The class was filled with a vibrant learning atmosphere. Dr. Lü Guo was deeply impressed by the professional competence and eagerness to learn demonstrated by all participants.
Founded in Beijing in 1995, Xuyang Group is a leading enterprise in China’s coal coking and chemical sector, ranking among China Top 500 Enterprises and China Top 50 Chemical Enterprises.
The Group’s business covers coke, chemicals, new materials, new energy and other sectors. It has built production parks across multiple Chinese provinces and in Indonesia. Boasting a complete full industrial chain of coal chemical industry, Xuyang is the world’s largest independent coke producer and supplier, as well as the world’s biggest processor of crude coking benzene.
The Group operates 11 overseas subsidiaries and offices, with business footprint spanning 41 countries and regions worldwide, and its international business keeps expanding.
As it accelerates its “Going Global” strategy, the Group faces extensive work including bidding for overseas projects, negotiations on equipment procurement, as well as reading cutting-edge international technical literature, benchmarking against global industrial standards and cross-border exchanges between technical professionals.
The enterprise attaches great importance to R&D. It has established a thousand-strong professional R&D team, gathering a cohort of postdoctoral and doctoral researchers, and holds hundreds of patents and proprietary technologies.
Coal chemical industry is technology-intensive with rapid technological iteration. To maintain industrial competitiveness, it is necessary to continuously keep track of new processes, new equipment and new research outcomes across the globe.
With the launch of overseas projects and growing international technical exchanges, technical personnel’s practical demand for professional English in coal chemistry keeps rising. This training is organized in response to the enterprise’s real business needs. It aims to help R&D technicians shore up weaknesses in language application and break down language barriers for technological internationalization.
Unlike general business English, professional English for the coal chemical industry carries strong industrial characteristics, covering the full industrial chain links including coal gasification, synthesis reactions, olefin preparation, tail gas treatment, equipment operation and maintenance, and process research & development.
This field contains a large number of exclusive terminologies, fixed technical sentence structures and industry-specific expressions, so the learning logic for general English cannot be directly applied. Many technicians possess solid professional expertise in Chinese, yet they often encounter practical challenges when reading foreign technical documents, such as inaccurate terminology translation, difficulty in comprehending lengthy technical sentences, and non-standard English writing for technical reports.
When enterprises study foreign literature, align with overseas technical standards, carry out cross-border project cooperation and promote the export of technologies, specialized language often becomes a tangible threshold. An inaccurately translated equipment manual or misunderstood foreign literature may bring unnecessary risks to project R&D and on-site production.
This explains why many leading chemical enterprises are attaching growing importance to building their technicians’ professional English competence and incorporating industry-specific English training as a vital component of their talent development system.
Among the participants in this training, postgraduates and doctoral degree holders account for 90%. They are core technical backbones who have long been rooted in the front line of the coal chemical industry. Many of them have overseas work experience and a track record of international academic exchanges, boasting solid professional foundations and a broad vision when examining industry issues.
The class was not limited to mere vocabulary explanation. Instead, it was delivered with real corporate work scenarios at its core, focusing on practical tasks such as technical document writing, foreign literature reading, and dialogues for cross-border technical communication. During the session, participants took the initiative to interact and actively discussed various practical problems encountered in their daily work. Several trainees even communicated on technical details directly in English. Their understanding of overseas project scenarios and cutting-edge technical terminology exceeded my expectations. One could truly feel the team’s sound professional competence and passion for knowledge. Most of the questions raised by the participants stemmed from real challenges in project R&D and external liaison, carrying strong practical reference value.
Prior to this, Suntrans also delivered a special training program for international talent reserve of Zijin Mining at the University of International Business and Economics (UIBE). This six-week training addressed the common dilemma of mining professionals: proficient in technology yet unfamiliar with international rules, skilled in practical operations yet poor at cross-border communication. A customized mining professional English curriculum was designed for 30 young reserve backbones of Zijin Mining specializing in geology, mining and technology.
Discarding generic English content, the training was delivered based on real work scenarios including overseas geological exploration, mineral right assessment, operation and maintenance of overseas mines, cross-border business negotiation and foreign-related compliance. It covered international mining standards such as JORC and NI 43‑101. The teaching team consisted of foreign language faculty from UIBE and native-speaking foreign instructors, aiming to comprehensively improve trainees’ abilities in listening, speaking, reading and writing of professional English.
By comparing the statistics of the two training sessions, we can see that participants with master’s degrees or above accounted for approximately 30% in the Zijin Mining training, while the proportion of highly educated attendees reached 90% in this Xuyang Group program. This reflects Xuyang Group’s emphasis on high-end R&D talents, which constitutes a key factor underpinning the enterprise’s steady development within the coal chemical industry.
Competition among industrial enterprises is, in the final analysis, competition for talents. Recruiting and cultivating high-level technical professionals serves as an important foundation for enterprises to build long-term development competitiveness.
The long-term development of an enterprise cannot be achieved without talent support. Ren Zhengfei of Huawei once stated that enterprises should attach importance to basic scientific research and be willing to introduce and nurture research talents. This principle also applies to technology-driven industries such as chemical and mining sectors.
An enterprise’s comprehensive strength stems not merely from production capacity and scale; talent echelon development constitutes its inner confidence. Only when an enterprise has a cohort of technicians with solid professional expertise and an international vision can it engage with international codes and tackle technical challenges.
The coal chemical industry is undergoing a transition toward green, low-carbon and efficient conversion, accompanied by increasingly frequent global technical exchanges. Technical talents are required to master processes and R&D, as well as possess the capability for international communication.
With over two decades of language service experience in the mining and chemical sectors, Dr. Lü Guo has long held the view that industry-specific professional English is far more than simple word-for-word conversion. It serves as a practical tool for technicians to keep up with global cutting-edge advances and realize cross-disciplinary technical communication.
Language can deliver real value only when integrated with professional expertise, helping technicians comprehend foreign documents and conduct smooth cross-border technical exchanges. English learning detached from industrial context can hardly address the actual pain points of enterprise technicians. This is why Suntrans has consistently adhered to its dual-track service model of “Specialized Expertise + Language”.
Moving forward, Suntrans will continue to refine its professional language services for the mining and coal chemical industries. Tailored to the real business scenarios of enterprises, we will deliver supporting services including professional English empowerment training and technical document translation. We help technical talents in domestic industrial enterprises break through language barriers, keep pace with global frontiers, and facilitate better international exchange and cooperation for China’s technical achievements in coal chemical and mining sectors.
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