The price of South African coal is $65 per ton CIF Odessa. Together with port fees and transportation expenses it reaches $80 per ton (or 1920 UAH per ton), which is higher than 1100-1600 UAH per ton that Centrenergo used to pay for coal from Russia or the terrorists-controlled Donbass.
These sources have been threatened by Ukraine cutting off electricity to the Russia-annexed Crimea. In response they stopped coal deliveries altogether.
“So Centrenergo would have to rely on coal imported from SAR as the only fuel source for two of its three power stations working on such coal”, said Dragon Capital senior analyst Denis Sakva.
As of December 2, Centrenergo stocked some 200 thousand tons of coal, 83 thousand tons at Tripolskaya thermal power station near Kiev and 116 thousand tons at Zuevskaya TPS in Kharkiv region.
“The South African coal would cost Centrenergo some 0.98 UAH per kW-h of electricity produced, more than in November. The company will not be able to cover its production expenses. As the result it could lose 16 million UAH on the new batch of coal”, said Sakva.
The new batch would total 168 thousand tons. Another lot of 170 thousand tons is expected in January-February 2016. (Ukrainian metal)