OREANDA-NEWS. March 26, 2009. In 2009, Komsomolets Donbassa Mine (Kirovskoe, Donetsk Region) is planning to increase its coal output by 5.6% to 3.6 million tons

In 2009, Komsomolets Donbassa Mine (Kirovskoe, Donetsk Region) is planning to increase its coal output by 5.6% to 3.6 million tons, the Chief Strategy Officer of Donbass Fuel-Energy Company Ltd. (DTEK, Donetsk), Vitaly Butenko, informed the Interfax-Ukraine agency.

According to him, the demand for T grade steam coal produced by the company this year will exceed the mine’s production indicators.

V. Butenko also reminded that the annual plan of the Pavlogradugol coal mining company (Dnepropetrovsk) included a drop in output by 4.9% to 13.5 million tons.

‘Coal surplus and decreased supply volumes have had an impact on the output planning by DTEK’s mines in 2009 … It is less relevant to lean coals, the demand for which will exceed the production capacities of Komsomolets Donbassa even in 2009’, he said.

V. Butenko also advised that a significant crisis-driven fall in production in particular in the energy, steel making and chemical industries had resulted in reduced electricity transmission volumes. In this connection DTEK’s energy supply companies (Service-Invest and PES-Energougol. Note by IF) are going to lower electricity transmission in 2009 by 31% to 9.3 TWh.

He said that a quite big cut was also planned in electricity generation business to 14.3 TWh, which was a 14.5% y-o-y decline. ‘This is related both to the projected drop in electricity consumption and units’ shutdowns as a part of our ongoing equipment upgrade programme’, explained DTEK’s Chief Strategy Officer.

As informed, in 2008, DTEK’s enterprises increased coal output by 11.4% compared to 2007 to 17,594.6 thousand tons, electricity transmission by 10.8% to 13.510 TWh, while the energy generating company Vostokenergo decreased electricity supply by 7.3% to 16.789 TWh.

DTEK was established in 2005 to run the energy assets of the System Capital Management Group (SCM, Donetsk). It was entrusted with the strategic management of the Group’s businesses making up a vertically integrated chain of coal production and processing to electricity generation and sale.