To begin with, let’s take a look at how much electricity was produced from hard coal and other fuels over the month. Supplying a substantial part of the demand is coal’s fundamental, though not the only role.
As temperatures cool down, energy production increases mainly from emission-intensive sources. Hard coal with a sizable rebound (by ¼) compared to September, when it recorded its lowest share in the mix ever. Lignite with a slight rebound. Together, both types of coal provided 57% of electricity. With the commissioning of jointly more than 1.3 GW of new capacity at the Dolna Odra power station in August and October, the role of gas significantly increases, with 2 TWh of energy (14%) coming from this source in October.
More data on electricity production by source is available on the chart Electricity production, source: ARE
Hard coal in October
Below, we analyse the monthly data from the hard coal sector. The comments refer to the charts constantly available on energy.instrat.pl in the Mining section.
Symbols mean:
↗️ a rise
↘️ a decrease
= marginal or no difference in comparison to the previous month
Production and sales of hard coal
COAL PRODUCTION – 4.2 Mt ↗️
COAL SALES – 3.8 Mt ↗️
Coal production recorded one of the biggest monthly jumps in many years: +21 p.p., 717 000 tonnes more than in September. The increase is partly justified due to the rise in coal-fired power generation and preparations for winter, but the value outstripped demand. Sales were also up by 11 p.p., but more than 300 000 tonnes of the coal mined was not sold and ended up on stocks.
Hard coal reserves
TOTAL – 13.81 Mt ↗️
RESERVES AT MINING SITES (mining) – 5.86 Mt ↗️
RESERVES AT MINING SITES, PURCHASED (by the power industry) – 0.23 Mt ↘️
RESERVES AT POWER PLANTS (power industry) – 7.71 Mt ↗️
Overall, coal stocks in Poland increased by 0.53 million tonnes. Excess production translated into an increase in stocks at mines (+ 332 000 tonnes), and the approaching winter season justifies an increase in stocks at power plants (+ 229 000 tonnes). In addition to the stockpile totals reported by the mining and energy agencies, other stocks are not publicly known. However, Minister of Industry Marzena Czarnecka recently revealed in an interview with “Dziennik Zachodni” that there are still 6 million tonnes of coal in stock at the main transhipment point for coal coming into Poland from abroad – the Port of Gdansk. This coal is fragmented, meaning it is suitable only for power plants. It was brought from abroad in 2022 in an ill-coordinated, emergency process of shutting supplies from Russia.
Employment in hard coal mining
EMPLOYMENT – 74 576 persons ↘️
The fall in employment was 131 persons. October was the 9th month of continued, downward trend.
Hard coal price for electricity generation (PSCMI1)
PSCMI 1 – 477 PLN/t =
Coal for the power industry has not changed its price in the deliveries realised over October, compared to the previous month. There was a slight increase (by 1%) in the pricing of the calorific value of the coal – 21.88 PLN/GJ.
Hard coal price for heating (PSCMI 2)
PSCMI 2 – 543 PLN/t ↘️
The coal delivered for district heating plants in October was 6% cheaper than in September – both in pricing per tonne and per energy contained (22.99 PLN/GJ).
That is all in the current issue. We would like to remind you that data on Polish mines is always available in our database: Lignite and hard coal mines. It contains a complete list of active deposits and annual statistics of mines.
Changes in the Coal Brief
Compared to previous monthly issues, the current Coal Brief has been ‘slimmed down’ but without losing valuable information to users. As always, monthly statistics for the mining sector are available on the permanent charts on energy.instrat.pl in the Mining section. Comments on the data are provided as usual in the blog post above. We have dispensed with creating separate charts in the content of the Coal Brief, providing links to the permanent charts instead. The additional dedicated graph produced for the Coal Brief remains the mix of monthly energy production (so-called “treemap”).
Contact
Wojciech Przedlacki, Product Owner energy.instrat.pl, wojciech.przedlacki@instrat.pl
