HEFEI -- Shenhua Group, China's largest coal producer, has made huge profits from its pilot coal-to-liquid (CTL) project in North China in the first three months of this year, a company executive said Saturday.

Zhang Yuzhuo, general manager of Shenhua Group, said at a forum held in East China's Anhui province that the group's CTL project in Inner Mongolia autonomous region produced 216,000 tons of refined oil products in the first quarter of this year, which brought more than 100 million yuan ($15.38 million) in profits.

The CTL project, which is seen as an important way to provide an alternative to petroleum, was completed in late 2008 as the world's first large CTL gas plant.

With annual capacity expected to reach one million tons, the pilot project operated for 5,000 hours last year and produced 450,000 tons of oil products, according to Zhang.

Sources with the group had said that Shenhua was considering injecting the assets of the CTL project into China Shenhua Energy Co, the group's listed arm, after it begins to accumulate profits.