ENERGO: Ukraine's coal and gas production takes a major hit

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has affected the country’s coal and gas production, Ukraine Business News reported on March 29. 

Ukraine’s coal production decreased by 30%, and gas production by 15%, Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko announced.

This is due to the flooding of two coal mines in Zolote and Toshkivska, Luhansk Oblast, as well as major transportation issues. 

Ukraine’s coal-rich regions are in the east of the country, particularly in the Donbas and Dnipro regions where heavy fighting and shelling have damaged infrastructure including railways, making it hard to export coal. 

Australia has announced it will provide 70,000 tonnes of coal to Ukraine, at the request of the Ukrainian government, in order to support the country’s coal depletion, according to Epravda. 

Moreover, Halushchenko told Epravda that natural gas production by state and private Ukrainian companies had decreased by 15%.

“Ukrgazvydobuvannya froze certain facilities in the Kharkiv region, in the part closer to the east,” Halushchenko said. “[Ukrgazvydobuvannya] stopped production. There were several situations in the first or second week of the war, when shells began to hit Shebelinka, and they gradually began to preserve. Now production has fallen by about 15% across the country. This is if Ukrgazvydobuvannya and private companies are taken together.” 

Forty of Ukraine’s gas distribution stations have been taken out of action by the conflict. However, Ukraine’s GTS operator still managed to transport 93.5mn cubic metres of gas on 24 March

Poland’s gas grid operator, Gaz-System, offered Ukraine capacity to allow gas imports via the Polish grid and its Ukrainian peer GTSOU earlier this month.