Ukraine reduces coal imports from Russia by 30 percent in 2015

In 2015, Ukraine has reduced its consumption of Russian coal by 30% in comparison with 2014.

The Minister of Energy and Coalmining Industry Volodymyr Demchyshyn told reporters at an hour of questions to government, Ukrinform reports.

"Our dependence on external supplies of coal decreased by at least 30 percent this year," the minister said.

He noted that this was partly achieved by increasing the share of cheaper nuclear power, which has a positive effect on the competitiveness of Ukrainian companies. Ukraine eventually plans to continue to reduce its imports of Russian coal to near zero in future. "We will enter the next heating season without Russian coal," the minister noted.

A similar situation is with Russian natural gas imports. According to the minister’ data, in 2015 Ukraine has managed to reduce the supply of gas from Russia in comparison with previous years. "We have managed to reduce gas supplies from the Russian Federation to 35-40 percent at the moment this year," he said.