MOSCOW, November 20 (Sputnik) – Russia will increase its coal supplies to China by 50% and to India by 400%, or up to 102 million tonnes each this year compared with 2022, the director of the Coal Industry Department of the Russian Energy Ministry, Petr Bobylev, said on Monday.
“We closed last year with 67 million tonnes [of coal supplied to China]. This year, it is highly likely that the export to China will for the first time in history be 100-102 million tonnes, judging from the data from the Federal Customs Service … Our largest partner is India, with 100 million or rather 102 million tonnes [of coal]. The export grew five times. Twenty million tonnes since last year make it a five-fold increase,” Bobylev said at a conference discussing the industrial development of Russia’s Kemerovo Region, also known colloquially as Kuzbass, in southern Siberia.
Moreover, Russia and China are working on an intergovernmental agreement to secure 100 million tonnes in annual coal supplies from Russia, the official added.
Earlier this month, Russian Deputy Energy Minister Sergey Mochalnikov said that the ministry’s goal was to maintain the output and export rates of coal attained for the past two years, namely 440 million tonnes for output and 220 million tonnes for export. According to the data from the Russian Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat), coal production in Russia fell by 1.4% in September year-on-year, while from January to September, it grew by 0.9% to 315 million tonnes.
As part of the fifth package of sanctions against Russia, the European Union decided to phase out Russian coal. Russian coal supplies to the European Union were completely banned in August 2022.