Coal reserves at Ukraine's coal-burning power plants increased by 3.6% over the past seven days, or 77,000 mt, to 2.194 million mt as of Monday, power transmission system operator UkrEnergo said.
Ukraine planned to have at least 3.2 million mt of coal in stocks, including 1 million mt of anthracite, by October 15, according to the energy and coal industry ministry. However, these plans were changed to 2.5 million mt of coal, including 1.2 million mt of anthracite, to be stored by November 1, according to UkrEnergo.
Meanwhile, consumption of coal also increased in Ukraine after the start of the six-month district heating season on October 15.
Ukraine is facing coal shortages because two thirds of its coal mines have been shut down due to an armed conflict with pro-Russian separatists over the past 17 months, affecting its major coal-producing areas in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions.
Ukraine is traditionally a major producer of anthracite, which has higher calorific content among other types of coal, and that's why it has been widely used by thermal power plants throughout the country.
But all Ukrainian anthracite coal mines are in those parts of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions that are now controlled by the separatists.
Earlier this month, Ukraine, through complicated negotiations with the separatists and involving Ukraine's SBU security service, managed to secure supplies of about 40,000 mt/day of anthracite from the separatist-controlled areas of Donetsk and Lugansk, according to the ministry.
Ukraine's reserves of anthracite increased to 1.13 million mt as of Monday, compared with 1.047 million mt a week earlier, UkrEnergo said.
Reserves of other types of thermal coal fell to 1.064 million mt as of Monday, compared with 1.071 million mt as of a week earlier, UkrEnergo said.
At the same time, stocks of fuel oil at the power plants rose to 16,200 mt as of Monday from 15,750 mt a week earlier.
UkrEnergo reports on fuel oil stocks together with coal stocks because some Ukrainian power plants use fuel oil to initiate the burning of coal. Fuel oil also used by power plants as a reserve fuel for power generation.
Ukraine's overall power consumption increased to 19.843 GW on Monday from 19.553 GW a week earlier, according to UkrEnergo.
As of Monday, the country's nuclear power plants were operating at a total capacity of 10.734 GW, fossil fuel-burning power plants operated at 8.190 GW, hydropower plants operated at 826 MW and wind-powered plants at 93 MW, the company said.
