You're reading: Prodan: Coal from South Africa to cost Centrenergo 13 percent more than Russian coal

The price of coal imported from South Africa for the needs of state-run power generating company Centrenergo is $91 per tonne at the Ukrainian port, while the price of Russian coal is $80 per tonne, Energy and Coal Industry Minister of Ukraine Yuriy Prodan has said.

‘By the end of this month or early next month a first vessel with coal is to arrive [from South Africa],’ he told reporters.

Prodan said that a batch of coal on the first vessel will be some 87,000 tonnes, and monthly supplies under the contract with South Africa are expected at some 250,000 tonnes.

The minister added that while South African coal is on its way to Ukraine, Centrenergo will partially satisfy its needs by buying Russian coal.

Asked what the company will do if Russia bans supplies of coal to Ukraine, Prodan said that then other directions of imports will be opened, for example, from Australia.

He again said that the necessity of importing coal appeared due to the stoppage of shipments of anthracite coal from the counterterrorist operation zone and the impossibly of replacing it by other type of coal which is enough extracted in Ukraine and Poland due to the structure of boilers at power plants.

As reported, referring to national joint-stock company Ukrenergo, coal stocks at warehouses of thermal power plants (TPPs) of Ukraine in the period from Sept. 1 to Sept. 8, 2014 fell by 4.1 percent or by 88,440 tonnes, to 2.048 million tonnes.

DTEK, the largest private energy company of the country, said that Ukrainian energy generating companies face shortages of anthracite coal of a volume of around one million tonnes a month due to the events in the Donbas, and imported deliveries via ports could cover only around 400,000 tonnes a month

‘We additionally need around 600,000 tonnes of coal a month. Russian coal is the most realistic option, and it is some $20 per tonne cheaper than coal shipped via ports,’ DTEK Director General Maksym Tymchenko said.

Tymchenko said that DTEK is buying coal from its mines in Rostov region and signed additional agreements on imports of coal from Russia, which will be shipped by rail.