You're reading: DTEK, trade union of coalminers alarmed at delay in signing of Ukraine’s balance of energy for 2013

The largest vertically integrated energy holding of Ukraine – DTEK – and the Trade Union of Coal Industry Workers are alarmed at the delay in the signing of Ukraine's balance of energy for 2013, the holding's press service has reported.

In conditions of a worsening economic situation in the coal sector of Ukraine, DTEK and the trade union have decided to create a working group on the provision of social protections for coalminers.

“In conditions in which the production and financial plan of the Ukrainian energy market for 2013 has not been approved, we don’t know how much fuel the country’s power plants will need. The warehouses of thermal power plants are overloaded with coal. In addition, today DTEK is subsidizing a monthly gap of around UAH 2 billion in payments to Energomarket linked to the debts of large state consumers. Nevertheless, we’ll continue providing for all the social guarantees,” the press service said, citing DTEK CEO Maksym Tymchenko.

In turn, the Trade Union of Coal Industry Workers said that DTEK is ready for a dialog and it focuses attention to the problems of illegal coal extraction.

“State-run and private coalmines are in a critical situation, which is linked to a surplus of coal products and a reduction in coal prices. One of the reasons is illegal coal extraction: the surplus on the market is around 5.5 million tonnes, while extraction from illegal mines takes around 6 million tonnes of consumption on themselves. In the near term I, as a member of the profile parliamentary committee, jointly with my colleagues will send a request to the government to try settling the issue,” said the chairman of the central committee of the Trade Union of Coal Industry Workers, Viktor Turmanov.

The sides said that the failure to settle key problems of the sector could result in large losses for coalmines and social destabilization in the coal extracting regions.

DTEK was created in 2005 to manage the energy assets of Rinat Akhmetov’s System Capital Management (SCM, Donetsk).

The share of total coal extraction of mines under the control of DTEK in 2012 came to 46.2%. Its coalmines extracted 39.612 million tonnes of coal.