In October, Ukraine imports have been almost brought to a halt after falling to nearly 50 thousand t of coal (-1.48 mio t or -96.8% y-o-y). Total imports of coal, including anthracite, in January-October 2022, plunged to 4.5 mio t (-11.6 mio t or -71.7% y-o-y).
The import volumes have been heavily hit by lower demand from domestic consumers and disruption of supply chains, as Ukrainian Black Sea ports have been shut down and Ukraine couldn’t import coal by sea following the Russian special operation. The military operation also put an end to rail coal supplies from Russia to Ukraine, which accounted for most of totalUkraine imports of the country.
Due to the warm weather and in order to save energy the country has started its centralized heating season in the beginning of November, about 14 days later than originally planned. This also has been exacerbated by Russian missile attacks targeting critical infrastructure, including power plants.
Ukraine was planning to secure 2.5 mio t of coal by the beginning of the heating season, but it had about 1.1 mio t of coal in stocks as of November 1 (+0.6 mio t y-o-y). Reserves has been falling since September, because Russia had to shut down Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant with a total capacity of 6 GW and disconnect it from the Ukrainian grid.
Despite the drop in imports, in June Ukraine lifted export duties on thermal coal and ramped up supplies from nearly zero to 0.63 mio t in 10 months of 2022 (+0.6 mio t y-o-y) to European countries, including Slovakia, Poland and Hungary.
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