UPDATE: Kemerovo Reg sees coal output rising to 240 mln tns in 2017

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KEMEROVO, Nov 23 (PRIME) -- Russia’s largest coal-mining region, Kemerovo, plan to raise coal output to 240 million tonnes in 2017 from 227.4 million tonnes produced in 2016, Governor Aman Tuleyev told the region’s Council of People’s Deputies.

“We have not closed a single company despite all the problems, and we’ve even managed to build new ones and to hold markets as best as we could. Today, we produce two and a half times more coal than we did in the Soviet times. This year we will produce 240 million tonnes of our black gold for the first time in our history. Our coal producers have set many world records,” he said.

Since January 1, companies have invested 63 billion rubles in the region’s coal industry, up 4.6 billion rubles on the year. Demand for coal is rising, as Asian countries are building and designing new coal-burning power plants, which will need hundreds of millions tonnes of coal in the next 10 years, he said.

“We have lived to see the rise of the coal market. Coal prices have generally satisfied us this year. Of course, five years ago we would not possibly be happy with prices of U.S. $80–90 per tonne of the most high-quality steam coal. But after the horror that the coal market endured in 2012–2015, these prices became a breath of fresh air for our coal industry,” he said.

He also said that investment in the region’s coal industry will rise by 1 billion rubles to 64 billion rubles in 2018, which will allow it to launch production of coal in the Ubinsky and Gusinsky-Yuzhny site. “This will add about 3 million tonnes of coal,” he said.

The region also plans to launch construction of three coal processing plants – the Uvalnaya, Taldinskaya-Energeticheskaya plants and the first stage of the Taldinskaya facility. “This will allow us to beneficiate an additional 11.5 million tonnes of coal a year. For the future, we have the goal of processing all coal produced in Kuzbass. The clear coal without inclusions is three times more expensive than the ordinary one, and we will also need less wagons to transport it,” he said.

A representative of the regional administration told PRIME that preliminary calculations show that the region will process 71.1% of the produced coal in 2018, up from 70.3% processed in 2016.

The new processing plants will be launched in 2019–2020.

(59.0061 rubles – U.S. $1)

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