The Minister of Energy and Coal Industry Ihor Nasalyk says Ukraine will entirely abandon anthracite coal until 2020. During a meeting with energy experts at the Reanimation Package of Reforms think tank on Friday, 4 August Nasalyk said his ministry has a clear schedule for the transfer of Ukrainian power units to gas coal and controls its compliance
"The policy will allow replacing about 6 mn tons of anthracite by the end of 2018, and entirely abandon anthracite-type kinds of coal by the end of 2019," Nasalyk said.
In particular, a pilot project is underway for the transfer of power units 2 and 5 at the Zmiev Thermal Power Plant (Kharkiv Region) belonging to the state-owned power generating company Tsentrenergo to gas coal.
The power unit 2 was commissioned and connected to the national energy grid in may. The reconstruction of power unit 5 continues, the minister said.
As regards coal, Nasalyk added that 300 mn hryvnia allocated by the Cabinet in 2017 allowed launch new mining longwalls with the aggregate capacity of about 5 thousand tons a day.
Ukraine has reported saving 2.7 mn tons of anthracite due to the emergency measures in the energy sector. According to the Cabinet, the reserves for today are at 867 thousand tons of coal.