The Trilateral Contact Group on the settlement of the situation in eastern Ukraine will discuss the possible halting of the Luhansk Thermal Power Plant’s operations and water supply to the areas of Donbas uncontrolled by Kyiv, Ukrainian Energy and Coal Industry Minister Ihor Nasalyk told reporters.
“One of the issues to be addressed in Minsk today is that we, on one hand, cannot provide the Luhansk Thermal Power Plant with anthracite coal as there are no supply routes except for the uncontrolled territories or Russia. After that, we have to cut off the water supply line to the uncontrolled territories,” Nasalyk said.
Coal can be shipped to the Luhansk Thermal Power Plant only via a rail line that runs trough the uncontrolled territories or from Russia, and there is no way to supply coal to this territory from Ukrainian ports, he said.
“If this issue is not resolved […] we may halt the operations of the Luhansk Thermal Power Plant. In our territory, we will compensate for this using the Severodonetsk Thermal Power Plant, will use the units operating on gas coal, and will transfer [power] from the Sloviansk Thermal Power Plant. But we cannot supply power there [the uncontrolled territories],” the minister said.
