KYIV

DTEK Energy, a key player in the Ukrainian coal industry, and Centrenergo, a major electric and thermal energy producing company, agreed to supply 75,000 tonnes of thermal coal from the United States in the coming months.

Supplies will be delivered in the coming months and will be divided equally, DTEK said.

“It became possible to ensure coal imports due to normalization of the situation in the electricity market, which made it possible to achieve economically reasonable prices, and thus find the necessary resources to prepare for the autumn-winter period,” DTEK said in a statement.

Centrenergo said that additional coal reserves would allow passing the heating season “calmly, without using gas or importing electricity.”

Centrenergo is a major electric and thermal energy producing company in central Ukraine and eastern Ukraine. DTEK Energy is a key player in the Ukrainian coal industry.

The coal from the United States will cost 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 4 coal processing plants, also said that it had started coal supplies from Poland and Kazakhstan. The first batch from Poland in amount 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.

Coal reserves at warehouses of thermal power plants of five power generating companies (DTEK Dniproenergo, DTEK Zakhidenergo, DTEK Skhidenergo, Centrenergo and Donbasenergo) amounted to 726,000 tonnes as of August 27, which is 812,000 tonnes less than the approved accumulation schedule for that date at 1.538 million tonnes, Ukraine’s Energy Ministry said.

There are 148 coal mines in Ukraine, 95 of them in areas outside the control of the Ukrainian government, in the eastern part of the country.

In December 2020, Ukraine prolonged 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 that Ukraine face a shortage of.