No Coal for Ukraine
Following the refusal of British company Steel Mont Trading to supply coal to Ukraine and the refusal of the DPR and LPR authorities to supply coal from Donbass, Russia also cancelled coal delivery to Ukraine. The deliveries are terminated since November 21, and the terms of resuming are still not specified. The press-service of the Ministry of Energy and Fuel does not comment on the information on the termination of deliveries from Ukraine. The press-service of DTEK, which is the biggest importer of coal from Russia, said it would comment on the information later on.
The deficit of separate brands of power station coal occurred in Ukraine as a result of military conflict in Donbass, where predominantly the coal of these brands was mined and where in the storehouses only of the state-owned mines there is about 2 mln tons of coal at present.
Ukrainian Ministry of Energy and Fuel the necessary import of these brands is estimated at 1–1.2 mln tons a month, out of which “Tsentrenegro” company needs about 330–350 ths tons.
Ukraine made attempts to provide for the import of coal from Russia and South Africa. Particularly, it was planned to deliver 250 thousand tons of coal from SAR at the price of 86 USD a ton (or 110–112 USD a ton including the cost of loading and unloading of the ship and transportation) to the power stations of “Tsentrenegro” till the end of 2014.
Meanwhile Minister of Energy and Fuel Yuriy Prodan said on November 12 that British company Steel Mont Trading terminated delieveries of Coal from the SAR to Ukraine. “Unfortunately, the company responsible for the delivery of coal, announced the termination of deliveries for “Ukrinterenergo”,— said he, having added that for the signing of new contracts for coal supply the Ministry will need no less than 1.5 months. According to him, the conflict between Steel Mont “and “Ukrinterenergo” can induce other companies stop their dealings with Ukraine.
Prodan concluded that because of the current situation Ukraine will have to buy cola of the deficit anthracite brands either in Russia or in Donbass. Meanwhile the authorities of the DPR said that they are ready to export cola to any country apart from Ukraine. The contracts for the delivery of coal of Russian origin (509 ths tons by the end of 2014) were signed at the price of 80 USD per ton — excluding the cost of delivery. The holding planned to import about 2.6 mln tons of coal of deficit power station brands from Russia. By the middle of November DTEK imported 1.3 mln tons of coal from Russia.
By Aleksands Luzan