BAKU, Azerbaijan, April 7. Europe’s ban on imports of Russian coal will trigger high electricity prices, says Carlos Torres Diaz, head of Rystad Energy’s Power Market Research team, Trend reports.
“These latest sanctions are a double-edged sword. Russian coal exports are worth an estimated €4 billion per year, and there is no easy like-for-like replacement for Russian coal in Europe’s power mix. European consumers – from large companies to households – should expect high prices for the remainder of 2022 as coal and gas are essential to meet the continent's power demand,” he said.
The expert noted that the decision to ban imports of coal from Russia will affect up to 70 percent of Europe’s thermal coal imports,
Diaz believes that Eastern Europe and Germany will be particularly hard hit as they generate a significant share of their electricity with Russian thermal coal.
“Russia exported 238 million tonnes (Mt) of coal in 2021, with 90 Mt (or 38%) of this volume being destined to European OECD countries (plus Ukraine), according to the US Energy Information Administration. Europe’s total coal demand is estimated to have reached around 630 Mt last year, meaning that the continent relies on Russia for around 14 percent of its total coal supply. This is quite a significant dependency, with Germany and the Netherlands being the region’s largest coal importers. Looking at just thermal coal imports into the EU, the dependency jumps much higher as Russia supplies 70 percent of all imports – typically high-energy bituminous coal that is crucial for power stations designed to run on this coal specification,” added the analyst.
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