In the middle of each month, we publish a set of key statistics on the coal market in Poland on our blog and X platform. The data is published with a 1.5-month delay, following announcements by the Energy Market Agency and the Industrial Development Agency, Katowice Branch.
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.
Coal-fired power plants in September recorded their lowest share in the electricity mix ever – only 29.8% and the lowest production – 4 TWh. Natural gas rose to 1.7 TWh (new maximum for September) and wind generation took over PV (2.2 and 1.6 TWh respectively).
More data on electricity production by source is available on the chart Electricity production, source: ARE
Hard coal in September
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 – 3.45 Mt ↗️
COAL SALES – 3.43 Mt ↘️
The values for extraction and sales stood at 3.45 and 3.43 million tonnes, so without much change (+1% and -2% respectively). This is still one of the lowest results ever.
Hard coal reserves
TOTAL – 13.3 Mt ↗️
RESERVES AT MINING SITES (mining) – 5.5 Mt =
RESERVES AT MINING SITES, PURCHASED (by the power industry) – 0.26 Mt ↗️
RESERVES AT POWER PLANTS (power industry) – 7.5 Mt ↗️
Stocks increased by 130 thousand tonnes, for which the increase in stocks already purchased by the power industry is mainly responsible. This is due to the nearing heating season, however increases do not happen only in autumn – in 2019/20 and 2022/23 the increase in stocks also occurred in winter.
Employment in hard coal mining
EMPLOYMENT – 74 707 people ↘️
The employment is falling consistently – in September it was -172 FTEs (-449 y/y). For comparison – in 2015, the employment has been falling on average by 900 FTEs monthly.
Hard coal price for electricity generation (PSCMI1)
PSCMI 1 – 476 PLN/t ↘️
Coal for the power industry has slightly decreased and costs 476 PLN/t or 21.75 PLN/GJ. Since May, the price of coal for the power industry has remained unchanged – between 476 and 484 PLN/t.
Hard coal price for heating (PSCMI 2)
PSCMI 2 – 575 PLN/t ↗️
For district heating, the price of coal rose by 2% per tonne, to 575 PLN/t and as much as 4%, when related to the calorific value – to 24.38 PLN/GJ. This type of coal costs between 561 and 592 PLN/t since May.
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
