KYIV

DTEK Energy, a key player in the Ukrainian coal industry, clinched an agreement with the U.S. company HC Trading on the supply of 150,000 tonnes of thermal coal to Ukraine to avoid difficulties during winter-time conditions, with temperatures well below zero.

It is expected that HC Trading, a member of Heidelberg Cement Group, will deliver coal in two shiploads ­– the first in December 2021, the second in January next year.

“There is less and less time left before the start of the heating season, so our company is doing everything possible to enter it with the maximum resources,” Ildar Salieiev, DTEK Energy CEO, said.

“We have intensified the repair campaign at our thermal power plants, open new longwalls and increase coal production at our mines. In addition, we were the first in Ukraine to start the advanced import of fuel from Poland, Kazakhstan and the United States.”

This delivery will be the company’s second contract for coal imports from the United States.

In August, DTEK Energy and Centrenergo, a major electric and thermal energy producing company, agreed to supply 75,000 tonnes of thermal coal from the United States. Centrenergo said that additional coal reserves would allow passing the heating season “calmly, without using gas or importing electricity”.

The coal from the United States costs 3,150 hryvnias ($120) per tonne. Ukrainian mines sell coal at 1,650 hryvnias per tonne.

DTEK, whose assets are represented by 13 mines and four coal processing plants, also said that it had started coal supplies from Poland and Kazakhstan. The first batch from Poland of 2,700 tonnes arrived in Ukraine in August. The company plans to import around 320,000 tonnes of thermal coal. DTEK’s total coal production amounted to 18.9 million tonnes in 2020.

There are 148 coal mines in Ukraine, 95 of them in areas in eastern Ukraine under the control of armed Russian proxies who run two unrecognised statelets.

In December 2020, Ukraine extended a 65 percent duty on coal imports from Russia until the end of 2021. The duty was not imposed on imports of anthracite and coking coal, the two types of coal in short supply in Ukraine.