Coal imports to Poland up by almost half a million ton

From the beginning of the year till the end of August around 5.2 ton of bituminous coal arrived to Poland, mainly from Russia. As to the eight months of the previous year, coal imports increased by almost half a million ton – shows the data from the Katowice branch of Industrial Development Agency (ARP).

Coal imports to Poland was one of the topics of the parliamentary mining and energy team meeting held on Wednesday. The head of the ARP branch in Katowice, Henryk Paszcza, estimated that the size of coal imports to Poland will most probably be comparable with last year’s 8 million ton. Imports from Russia will still dominate.

From the beginning of the year till the end of August to Poland flown in around 3.2 million ton of Russian coal, around 1 million ton of coking coal from Australia, and around 0.4 million ton from Columbia and Czech Republic alike. In the same period, the export of Polish coal was around 6 million ton, which means Poland is currently a net exporter of the raw material.

Director Paszcza indicated that previous attempts at preparing regulations that would limit or stop the import of Russian coal to Poland proved unsuccessful. As he said, what comes from Russia is mainly the so-called coal mix, i.e. unsorted coal, consisting of both fine coal and coal of better types, the so-called coarse and medium, of higher caloric value.

– Mixed coal which crosses the Polish border is sorted in Polish coal yards in the north or middle of Poland. After sorting, the fine coals, constituting around 30-40 percent, are sold at lower prices, while coarse and medium coal with good parameters is in most cases sold to heat plants and to municipal market – said the director, reminding that the size of the municipal coal market in Poland is estimated at around 12-13 million ton a year.

The head of the Katowice branch of ARP reminded that attempts at introducing regulations blocking coal imports from Russia assumed introduction of quality mechanisms which would eliminate such coal. However, it would be ineffective taking into consideration, among other things, EU regulations.

– Quality regulation would indicate what coal is being traded in the Polish customs territory. But if the coal would earlier come to, e.g. Lithuania, and thus enter the EU customs territory, it would not be subject to the restrictions –Paszcza explained.

Meanwhile, blocking import of unsorted coal to Poland would probably make sorting the material from Russia, currently carried out in Poland, move to e.g. the Baltic states or Belarus.

Anna Margis, the head of the mining department in the Ministry of Energy, informed that the ministry is thinking of introducing regulations that would enforce sorting of the coal imported from Russia.

– Currently, we are trying to make use of the provision and regulation to the act (on monitoring fuel quality) to limit the inflow of mixed coal into the territory of Poland, i.e. make Russia perform some kind of sorting with respect to the coal that is coming in – Margis said.

She reminded that the ministry wanted to use the prepared quality regulations to the act on monitoring fuel quality to stop coal imports from Russia, but introducing suitable provisions was not possible.

– Unfortunately, the provisions of the act, particularly article 3a regarding reciprocity clause, blocks out the possibility to directly halt the import of Russian coal to Poland – director explained, indicating that such action would mean a conflict with the European Commission.

– Russian coal coming into our territory may enter at any place in the EU; then it is treated as EU coal and may enter our territory – Margis added.

Source: PAP