Ukraine almost doubles spending on coal imports in Jan 2018

Ukraine increased foreign exchange costs for imports of hard coal and anthracite by 64.5% in January 2018 year-over-year, to US$281.161 million.

Russia, the United States, and Canada were the major suppliers of coal to Ukraine last year, according to the State Fiscal Service of Ukraine.

Coal imports from Russia in monetary terms amounted to $170.579 million (60.67%), while those from the U.S. stood at $91.017 million (32.37%), and from Canada -- at $13.1 million (4.66%). Coal imports from other countries were estimated at $6.465 million.

The country's exports of hard coal and anthracite amounted to almost $7.8 million in January.

Read alsoCoal stocks at Ukrainian TPPs shrink by 6% within weekAs UNIAN reported earlier, Ukraine started facing an acute shortage of coal since the summer of 2014 as a result of hostilities in the east of the country. It completely lost control over some areas in Donbas with coal mines. After that, the country began to import coal.

In 2016, Ukraine reduced spending on coal imports by 10% from 2015, to $1.467 billion.

In 2017, the two largest power generation companies that consume thermal coal contracted from South Africa (DTEK) and the United States (Centrenergo). At the same time, DTEK imports gas coal from the U.S.