The chairman of China Shenhua Group, Chen Biting, is set to retire and may be replaced by the group's president Zhang Xiwu.
Mr Chen, 63, had passed the standard retirement age of 60 for deputy minister-grade cadres and would soon retire, Caijing reported without saying where it got the information.
The former Jiangsu province vice-governor has also served as chairman of listed Shenhua since 2004.
Mr Chen will likely be succeeded by Mr Zhang, who is also a non-executive director of Shenhua, Caijing said, but a China Shenhua spokesman declined to comment.
'We see minimum impact on Shenhua given its mature business model, established practices and sound management,' said Nomura Securities analyst Donovan Huang.
Shenhua is the country's largest coal producer with integrated operations, allowing it to balance cyclical trends in the coal and power industries whose profits tend to go in opposite directions at extreme movements in coal prices. Shenhua posted an 18.9 per cent year-on-year growth in coal output to 15.7 million tonnes last month, with a 5.2 per cent decline in coal sales to 18.2 million tonnes.
