BEIJING, Oct 28 (Reuters) - China"s state planner has met coal producers and an industry body to discuss measures such as setting price levels and ways to better identify companies engaged in "profiteering", it said on Thursday, aiming to tame prices during a severe power crunch. Coal futures have nearly halved from a record high on Oct. 19 after the talks on price intervention and a possible timeframe at Wednesday"s meeting held by the powerful National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC). read more The meeting "focused on the reasonable price range and profit margin that should be maintained to promote the coordinated and sustainable development of the coal industry and downstream power industries," the planning body said. It did not disclose a level to set, but three major coal producers said on Wednesday they would fix ceilings for prices of thermal coal at 1,200 yuan ($188) a tonne for the winter heating season. The most-traded thermal coal futures contract on the Zhengzhou Commodity Exchange fell 13% on Thursday to 1,033.8 yuan ($161.47) per tonne, hitting the daily trading limit. That represents a decline of 47.8% from a record high of 1,982 yuan on Oct. 19, and the lowest level since Sept. 17. Wednesday"s meeting also aimed to identify firms deliberately inflating coal prices, the state planner said. Along with the market regulator, it has sent four teams to carry out "special supervision" of spot coal prices in the top three production regions. These are the provinces of Shanxi, Shaanxi and Inner Mongolia and the major coal port of Qinhuangdao in the central province of Hebei, among northern ports. On Tuesday, the planner said it was studying a new mechanism to guide thermal coal prices into a reasonable range over the long run. read more On Wednesday, the State Council, or cabinet, said it would defer taxes of about 17 billion yuan in the fourth quarter to help coal and heating firms resolve operational woes, and also ease taxes on some manufacturing firms. ($1=6.4023 Chinese yuan renminbi) Reporting by Shivani Singh, Aizhu Chen, Muyu Xu and Gabriel Crossley; Editing by Clarence Fernandez and Christian Schmollinger