Ukraine contract supply of 5.6 mln tonnes of imported coal before 2015 - Prodan
KYIV. Sept 23 (Interfax) - Ukraine's state and private enterprises have signed agreements on the supply of 5.6 million tonnes of imported coal before the end of 2014, Ukrainian Energy and Coal Industry Minister Yury Prodan said at a Cabinet of Ministers session on Tuesday.
"We have signed an agreement on coal supplies with South Africa - 1 million tonnes before the end of the year should be supplied. We, and other private enterprises, which today are working on the energy market (DTEK, Donbassenergo) signed agreements on the supply of goal from the territory of Russia, unfortunately, this is a scarce grade of coal, which you can only find in Russia and certain countries. The total volume of coal supplies according to the agreements we have is 5.6 million tonnes before the end of the year. This coal will be enough in order for us to have more than 3.5 million tonnes of coal at thermal power plants on January 1, 2015," he said.
Prodan said that today there are 2.944 million tonnes of coal in thermal power plant warehouses.
"For today we already have a build-up, it is small, but we began to accumulate 10,000 tonnes of coal." He said.
The minister said that even with the resumption of coal supplies from militant-controlled regions of Ukraine, the coal shortage would remain at the level of 200,000-250,000 tonnes a month due to the incapacitation of a number of mines. However, such a volume can be covered by imports without difficulty.
