OREANDA-NEWS  The Russian coal industry was on the verge of bankruptcy due to falling world prices, rising logistics costs within the country and increased payments to the budget. Kommersant writes about this with reference to the October presentation of the AC TEK.

According to analysts, this year the total losses of coal companies are estimated at 34 billion rubles, while in 2022 and 2023 they ended with profits of 783 billion and 357 billion rubles, respectively.

In total, fiscal and tariff measures deprived the industry of about 500 billion rubles. Most of the withdrawal — about 300 billion — is accounted for by the abolition of the reduction factor in the tariffs of Russian Railways. Another 75 billion rubles were taken away by the export duty, and 50 billion by the duty on supplies to China from Beijing.

The binding of the mineral extraction tax (MET) and an additional surcharge in the rate of this tax per ton of coal deprived enterprises of 30 billion rubles each.

Alexander Kotov, head of consulting at NEFT Research, pointed out that the industry is starting to dive. According to the company's forecasts, in 2024, coal production in Russia will fall from 439 million tons to 425, and exports will drop below 200 million tons from 213 million. Sanctions and overstocking of warehouses in China and India lead to this result. Over the past two years, export revenue has fallen by more than 400 billion rubles.