Expert calculated the losses Ukraine suffered as a result of the purchase of South African coal

According to the member of the Supervisiory Council of the Institute of Energy Strategies Yurii Korolchuk, investigation of the case of the purchase of South African coal must give the answers to three key questions. What is the real price if the coal together with its delivery to the thermal power stations in Ukraine? Why did the government decide to buy coal in the SAR, if they knew about its expensive cost? What is the amount of losses the budget  of Ukraine suffered as a result of paying extra for the South African coal?

– The cost of the African coal is 120-125 USD (1560 UAH according to the course 13 UAH/USD), says the expert. – Probably, the decision to buy coal in the SAR had been a priori corrupt, and the conflict with Russia only facilitated this decision. Correspondingly, such corrupt political decision in fact caused the third problem: loses for the budget.

According to preliminary estimates made by Yurii Korolchuk, the purchase of 1 mln tons of coal in the SAR amounted to 400 mln UAH of damages. With the subsidies that the state allots to the mines are added, the sum of damages will constitute more than 1 bln UAH.

– Unfortunately, under the given circumstances the import of coal is unavoidable, explains the expert. – Nevertheless, total termination of support of the domestic mines creates two problems. The first is the drop of the already catastrophically low level of trust on behalf of the population of coal mining regions of Donetsk and Lugansk (which Kiev de facto has no control over) to the authorities of Ukraine. The second is the step towards greater dependency from the import of coal in addition to the dependency from the supplies of gas and nuclear fuel.

The expert says that the support of coal mining industry is the forced, but normal practice for the coal mining countries. E.g., our neighbors Poles in 1992-2013 allotted  42 bln USD of subsidies.

– Notably, the Minister of Energy Yurii Prodan, and his deputy Yurii Ziukov acknowledged that Russian coal would be cheaper than African, explains Yurii Korolchuk.  – Before the start of the investigation Ziukov and Prodan acknowledged that negotiations in regard to the renewal of coal supply from the mines controlled by the units of the DPR and LPR army are underway. One should bear in mind that the government and the Ministry of Energy still fail to publicize either the cost of the purchase from the mediator, or the final cost of the coal with the delivery to the thermal stations. In the course of three months from August till November neither Yatsenyuk nor Prodan did it. The investigation of the issue of purchase of African coal should have been started in August-September already, as two deliveries of coal had already been transported to Ukraine.