Coal production in Ukraine decreased by 3.6% in September

Total coal production in Ukraine fell 3.6% year on year to 3.52 million tonnes in September 2016 from 3.65 million tonnes in September 2015, but was up from 3.5 million tonnes in September 2016. August this year.

In September, thermal coal output rose 0.3% year-on-year to 2.93 million tonnes, while coking coal production fell 20% to 589,300 tonnes, according to preliminary data from the Ministry of Energy and Coal Industry.

In January-September, Ukraine produced 29.55 million tons of coal, down 0.5% from 29.69 million tons in the same period a year earlier. Steam coal production fell 2.2% to 23.09 million tonnes in the first nine months from 23.62 million tonnes a year ago, but coking coal rose 6.4% to 6.46 million tonnes from 6.07 million tonnes last year.

Coal mining in Ukraine has been disrupted since June 2014 due to the armed conflict in Donetsk and Luhansk regions, two key coal-mining regions of the country. But coal production has recovered slightly after an agreement was reached in Minsk between Ukraine and Russia last year on a ceasefire in the conflict zone, which has yet to be implemented.

Coal production in government-controlled areas of Donetsk Oblast increased 9.9% year on year to 11.54 million tonnes in January-September, up from 10.5 million tonnes a year earlier. Coal production in government-controlled areas of the Luhansk region increased by 3.3% to 3.24 million tons.

At the same time, the volume of coal production in the Dnipropetrovsk region decreased by 5.9% to 13.44 million tons from 14.28 million tons, the output in the Lviv region decreased by 23% to 1.18 million tons from 1.53 million tons and the output in the Volyn region decreased by 22.1% to 145,600 tons from 186,900 tons.

State-owned coal mines extracted 4.4 million tonnes of coal in January-September this year, up from 5.02 million tonnes in the same period in 2015. In 2015, the volume of coal production in Ukraine decreased to 39.76 million tons from 65 million tons in 2014 and 83.7 million tons in 2013, according to the ministry.