1:00 20 February 2019
Coal imports up 52% y/y in 2018
Some 19.7 million metric tonnes of coal was imported into Poland in 2018, according to Eurostat's preliminary estimates. It is a record amount and represents a 50 percent increase on 2017. Most of the coal came from Russia.
According to updated data, coal imports in 2017 reached 12.9 million tonnes, and 8.3 million tonnes in 2016. Until now, the record year was 2011, when 15 million tonnes of coal came into the country. In 2018, the largest proportion of imported coal came from Russia, (13.4 million tonnes, an increase of 56 percent y/y). The US was in second place (1.53 million tonnes), with Australia (1.48 million tonnes) and Colombia (1.3 million tonnes) in third and fourth place respectively.
Such a significant increase in imports is primarily the result of problems in the Polish sector. Domestic production is shrinking from year to year due to the lack of sufficient investment and growing production costs.
