Kazakhstan’s coal exports up sharply

International Business News  –  Atameken Business Network news, from January to June this year, 57.4 million tons of hard coal, including lignite and fine coal, were mined throughout Kazakhstan, up 5.9% year-on-year. In monetary terms, the output value was 271 billion tenge. Of this amount, 53 million tons of rock coal, 2.3 million tons of lignite and 2 million tons of coal concentrate were mined. 2021, the total coal production in Kazakhstan will be 116.2 million tons, up 2.5% year-on-year.

Divided by administrative regions, Pavlodar Oblast has the highest coal production: 33.9 million tons, with an annual growth of 4.9%. Karaganda region traditionally occupies the second place in coal production: 18.4 million tons, an increase of 2.3%.

In January-May this year, Kazakhstan exported 13.7 million tons of coal, the value of which amounted to 344.2 million dollars. Physical exports increased by 21.1%, the value of exports increased by 91.5%.

Most of the coal was exported to CIS countries: 9.1 million tons, which is 0.7% higher than in the previous year. The main importer of Kazakhstan’s coal in the sector is Russia: 8.4 million tons, up 15.3% year-on-year.

The top three countries also include Kyrgyzstan and Belarus. Coal exports to other non-CIS countries amounted to 4.6 million tons, twice as much as in the same period last year. The main importing country was Switzerland: 3.3 million tons, an annual increase of 75 percent. Poland and Cyprus are in the second and third places, respectively.

At the same time, the Ministry of Industry and Infrastructure Development of Kazakhstan said that the population of the country is advised to buy coal in advance. So far, the ministry has developed a plan of coal demand for the budget organization and population for 2022-2023. According to the plan, the consumption will be about 9.5 million tons, of which households will account for 2.8 million tons.