“Russian coal exporters are facing cutbacks for the third year running, resulting in lower profits and lower production.”, — write: epravda.com.ua
Russian coal exporters are facing cutbacks for the third year running, resulting in lower profits and lower production. This is known from Argus statistics, reports The Moscow Times. According to the results of 2024, Russian coal miners managed to sell 195 million tons of products to foreign markets – 17.5 million tons less than the year before, and 26.2 million tons less than the 2022 figure. Analysts from Argus noted that the indicators are negatively affected by market conditions, sanctions and railway infrastructure problems. Advertisement: “Unlike oil and gas, which Europe continues to purchase, albeit in small volumes, coal has come under a total embargo, and the largest coal companies – SUEK and “Mechel” were included in the sanctions lists of the United States,” the message says. As noted in Argus, the situation with exports was worsened by problems on the railways, which were not ready for the “turn of the economy to the East”. The lack of locomotives and drivers with an increase in freight traffic has put Russian railways on the verge of transport collapse: the average speed of traffic on the network has fallen below 35 km/h and has become the lowest since 1991. Due to problems on the railways, some coal companies were not able to deliver the project according to the plan.Advertisement: At the same time, export prices for coal fell to a minimum in the last 7 years, which made all coal companies of the Russian Federation unprofitable. The net loss was 81 billion rubles ($810 million). Against this background, in the main coal region – the Kemerovo region of the Russian Federation – according to the results of last year, production decreased by 15.8 million tons, to 198.4 million.