Mr Volodymyr Demchishin, Ukraine’s newly-appointed minister of energy and coal mining industry, said that Ukraine may take out about 2 million tons of coal from the conflict-hit Donbas region.
Mr Demchishin said that Ukraine was not planning to buy that coal but wanted to take it out from the storehouses of the Ugol Ukrainy (Ukraine’s Coal) state-owned company.
He said that “This coal belongs to Ukraine and the coal is at Ukrainian mines. I hope we will be able to solve the problem as soon as we have an opportunity to take it out via Debaltseve.”
Coal reserves at Ukrainian thermal power stations dwindled by 23.7% to 1.346 million tonne from November 24th to December 2nd this year.
The situation is particularly critical at the Zmiyevskaya, Uglegorskaya, Luhanskaya, Pridnieprovskaya and Krivorihskaya thermal power stations. Their fuel supply will not last for more than four days. (https://coal.steelguru.com/cis/18401/ukraine_may_take_out_2mt_of_coal_from_donbas_mr_demchishin)