Ukraine plans to increase coal output in 2012 to 84 million tonnes from 82 million tonnes in 2011, Ukrainian Energy and Coal Minister Yuriy Boiko said at a press conference in Kyiv on Friday, Jan. 13
Therefore, production this year will increase by 2.4%.
"The switching of our heat power plants to coal will allow us to save up to six billion cubic meters of gas a year," Boiko said.
Earlier, the Ukrainian government included the state-run Eskhar heat power plant two (Kharkiv region) on the list of state property that can undergo concession. The government said that the transfer of enterprises for concession could attract investments into projects for modernization of heat power plants for their further switch to modern technologies of coal burning, including the coal-water mixture technology.
Ukrainian coal-sector companies increased production by 8.9% in 2011 year-over-year, to 81.859 million tonnes. Coking coal output in 2011 was up by 3.7%, to 24.858 million tonnes, and the production of power-generating coal increased by 11.4%, to 57 million tonnes.
In 2011 Donetsk region increased coal output by 13.1% to 36.266 million tonnes, Luhansk region – by 9.7% to 27.269 million tonnes, Dnipropetrovsk region – by 2.5% to 15.414 million tonnes, while coal production in Lviv region dropped by 10.2% to 2.359 million tonnes, and in Volyn region by 4.8% to 550,200 tonnes.
