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Coal mining has historically been an important industry in Ukraine. Although the industry is often associated with the coal-rich Donets basin in the east of the country, other coal mining regions include the Lviv-Volhynian basin and the Dnieper brown coal mining basin. The Donets basin is Ukraine's most developed and largest coal mining region.

Ukraine was in 2013 the third largest coal producer in Europe. In 1976, national production was 218 million metric tonnes. By 2016, production had dropped to 41 million metric tonnes. The Donets Black Coal Basin in eastern Ukraine, with 90% of the nation's reserves, suffers from three connected problems: (1) mines are not profitable enough to sustain capital investment, resulting in aging mining equipment and processes, (2) the government, taking advice from the International Monetary Fund, has discontinued $600 million annual mining subsidies, and (3) the Ukrainian government refuses to buy from mines controlled by the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic and Luhansk People's Republic.

History

Coal mining has historically been an important industry in Ukraine. Coal first started to be produced in Ukraine in 1870, when it was part of the Russian Empire. In 1913, Donetz produced 87% of Russia's coal, and 50% of the metallurgical coal of the USSR. Like other Soviet enterprises, coal companies provided social facilities including schools and hospitals. By 2013, Ukraine had become the third largest coal producer in Europe.

Coal reserves

Ukraine's coal reserves are estimated at 60 billion tonnes, of which 23 billion are proven and probable, and 10 billion tonnes are economically extractable. In 2013, according to the Ukrainian mining trade union, coal constituted 95% of Ukraine's domestic energy resources.

It has been calculated that 90 percent of Ukraine's coal reserves are located in the Donets Coalfield in the east of the country. In March 2017, the Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko signed a decree that banned the movement of goods to and from territories controlled by the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic and Luhansk People's Republic, which stopped coal from the Donets Black Coal Basin being used in the rest of the country.

Other Unkrainian coalfields include the Lviv-Volhynian Coalfield, between Lviv and Volodymyr-Volynskyi, and the Dnieper Coalfield in central Ukraine, where lignite (brown coal) was mined until the 1990s.

Coal mining

n.b.: 2014, 2015, and 2016 do not include extraction in the territory occupied by the separatists.

In July 2014, several mines were closed in Eastern Ukraine because of fighting during the 2014 pro-Russian conflict in Ukraine. The war in Donbass caused coal production in Ukraine to decrease by 22.4% of its 2013 value, to 64.976 million tonnes. As a result, Ukraine begun importing coal from South Africa and Russia. A lack of coal for Ukraine's coal-fired power stations and a shutdown of one of the six reactors of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant lead to rolling power outages throughout the country throughout December 2014.

Consumption, import and export

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Coal consumption in 2012 grew to 61.207 million tonnes, up 6.2% compared with 2011. Most is used for public utilities and for power generation. However local coal only provides 50% of the country’s electricity needs, therefore requiring Ukraine to import from Russia and Poland.

As of 2013, the Ukrainian government plans to completely replace the natural gas used in the steel industry and some other economic sectors with coal.

Coal powered 38% of Ukrainian electrical generation in 2014. The relative cost of domestic coal versus imported coal, nuclear and gas, made it unworkable. In 2016, the nation imported 15.648 million tonnes of coal and anthracite worth of $1.467 billion. In the year before the start of the Russo-Ukrainian War, 2013, Ukraine exported 500 thousand tonnes and imported 25 million tonnes. In 2016, Ukraine exported 520,585 tonnes of coal and anthracite worth of $44.762 million.

In 2019, Ukraine produced the highest amount of PM₁₀ particulates and sulfur dioxide air pollution emissions in Europe from coal fired electricity generation. None of Ukraine's power plants have desulfurization equipment other than a small trial plant on unit 2 of Trypilska thermal power plant.

In June 2020, the Government of Ukraine prioritized the usage of coal at Ukrainian power stations to reduce the import of natural gas used at the power stations for electricity production.

Mine safety

Mine safety is the result of geology and human factors. The geology of Ukrainian coal mines is not favorable: seam thickness is small, seams are deep, and methane is common. The coal mines of Donbas are one of the most hazardous in the world due to enormous working depths (down from 300 to 1200 m) as a result of natural depletion, as well as due to high levels of methane explosion, coal dust explosion and rock burst dangers. As the Economic Review points out, "Since 1991, up to 300 have died at work every year".

Low profitability of Ukrainian mines has not attracted capital investment. As a result, the machinery and the processes used to dig coal are twenty years old. These methods are less safe on a per-miner basis and require more miners.

The Zasyadko Mine stands as an example of Donbass mine safety. It was opened in 1958 and privatized in 1992, since which time it has had seven major accidents, including the 2007 Zasyadko mine disaster (101 workers killed) and the 2015 Zasyadko mine disaster (17 killed).

Corruption and illegal mining

Ukrainian mines are sometimes run by mafia-like organizations. Often, these organizations derive large incomes from the mines that belong to the government. As a result, underfinancing causes many employees to have to wait to receive their monthly salary for weeks or even months. Additionally, a lack of financing influences the condition of many coal mines. Old mines don’t receive the necessary financial aid, therefore they are not being renovated or remodeled annually. All these problems together with other challenges have resulted in "gradually declining production capacity and a loss of global market share".

In the Donets Basin there are many extremely dangerous illegal mines.

See also

• Energy in Ukraine

References

1. "Photos: How war has devastated Ukraine's coal industry". CNN. 6 February 2022. Retrieved 26 February 2022.
2. Vorutnikov, Vladislav (May 25, 2015). "Ukrainian Coal: An Industry Divided". Coal Age. Archived from the original on 14 October 2017. Retrieved 13 October 2017.
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4. ^ Ukraine Coal Industry Restructuring Sector Report (PDF). World Bank. 4 March 1996. Retrieved 13 October 2017.
5. ^ "The coal-mining racket threatening Ukraine's economy". BBC News. April 23, 2013. Retrieved 24 April 2013.
6. Ukrainian energy industry: thorny road of reform, UNIAN (10 January 2018)
7. ПРОМИСЛОВИЙ ПЕРЕВОРОТ ТА ОСОБЛИВОСТІ СТАНОВЛЕННЯ ІНДУСТРІАЛЬНОГО СУСПІЛЬСТВА В УКРАЇНІ
8. ДИНАМІКА РОЗВИТКУ ГІРНИЧОЇ І МЕТАЛУРГІЙНОЇ ПРОМИСЛОВОСТИ НАДДНІПРЯНСЬКОЇ УКРАЇНИ
9. ВУГІ́ЛЬНА ПРОМИСЛО́ВІСТЬ
10. У 2006 році Україна збільшила видобуток вугілля
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12. В Україні видобуток вугілля за рік скоротився на 2,6%
13. ЕНЕРГЕТИЧНА ГАЛУЗЬ УКРАЇНИ: ПІДСУМКИ 2015 РОКУ
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15. Four miners killed, 16 injured after artillery shell hits bus in Chervonopartyzansk - DTEK, Interfax-Ukraine (11 July 2014)
16. ^ Coal output in Ukraine declines 22.4% in 2014, Kyiv Post (Jan. 8, 2015)
17. Ukraine pays for two more vessels carrying coal from South Africa – energy minister, Interfax-Ukraine (8 January 2015)
    Ukraine to Import Coal From ‘Far Away’ as War Curtails Mines, Bloomberg News (Dec 31, 2014)
    Batch of South African coal supplied to Ukraine, UNIAN (04.08.2015)
18. Ukraine turns off reactor at its most powerful nuclear plant after 'accident', The Independent (28 December 2014)
    Ukraine Briefly Cuts Power to Crimea Amid Feud With Russia Over NATO, The New York Times (DEC. 24, 2014)
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    Ukraine to Import Coal From ‘Far Away’ as War Curtails Mines, Bloomberg News (Dec 31, 2014)
19. ^ Ukraine plans to reach extraction of 105 m t of coal a year, says president, Interfax-Ukraine (30 August 2013) "Interfax". Archived from the original on 4 April 2020. Retrieved 24 July 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
20. "Poroshenko: Share of nuclear power grows to 60% amid blockade of trade with Donbas". UNIAN. 16 February 2017. Retrieved 21 February 2017.
21. Ukraine imports 15.6 mln tonnes of coal for $1.5 bln in 2016, Interfax-Ukraine (6 January 2017)
22. (in Russian) Production of coking coal in Ukraine fell to the lowest since independence, UNIAN (14 February 2014)
23. Alparslan, Ufuk (25 May 2021). "Coal power air pollution in Europe". Ember. Retrieved 30 July 2022.
24. Олександра, Автор: Панченко (25 June 2020). "Кабмін зробив вугілля основним паливом для українських ТЕЦ". Хмарочос (in Ukrainian). Retrieved 27 June 2020.
25. "Кабмін надав ТЕС на вугіллі пріоритетну диспетчеризацію". LIGA. 23 June 2020. Retrieved 27 June 2020.
26. Grumau, S. (2002). Coal mining in Ukraine. Economic Review.44.
27. Ukraine mine blast leaves 16 dead, BBC News (29 July 2011)
28. "The miner, hospitalized after the accident at the mine Zasyadko, died" (in Ukrainian). Korrespondent. 30 November 2007. Retrieved 14 October 2017.
29. Ukraine gas blast: 30 feared dead in Zasyadko coal mine BBC News
30. A short history of factors in the Ukraine. Coal International. (2010).
31. Illegal mines profitable, but at massive cost to nation, Kyiv Post (8 July 2011)

Further reading

• Belge, Boris (2023). "Grain, Coal and Gas: Ukraine's Economy since the Eighteenth Century". In Férez Gil, Manuel; Palko, Olena (eds.). Ukraine's Many Faces: Land, People, and Culture Revisited. transcript Verlag. ISBN 978-38394-6-664-3.
• Hayko, G.I.; Biletskyy, Volodymyr S. (2021). "Нарис історії гірництва в Україні" [Essay on the history of mining in Ukraine]. Journal of the Scientific Society Named After Shevchenko (in Ukrainian). Kyiv: Publishing House "Kyiv-Mohyla Academy". ISBN 978-966-518-805-6.

External links

• Ukraine from Eurocoal (EU)
• On the Industrial History of Ukraine from the European Route of Industrial Heritage
• Unregulated coal mining destroys Donbas nature from the Ukraine War Environmental Consequences Working Group

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