AN INDUSTRY IN CRISIS

摘要

To understand the impact of events in Donetsk and Lugansk on the Ukrainian coal industry, two main questions need to first be answered: What was the situation in the country's coal mining before 2014? What was the role of those two regions in Ukraine's coal market? The in-depth analysis of the Ukrainian coal mining industry was made in previous articles: 'Battle Begins' World Coal October 2010 and 'Visitors from the East' World Coal November 2012. Here is the brief summary of how it was seen then. An updated energy strategy to 2030 assumed the nation would produce 115 million rpa of coal in 2030; it would be self-sufficient in metallurgical coal; and it would continuously replace Russian natural gas with thermal coal as the major fuel for Ukraine's thermal power plants.