Polish Briefing: Poland imports less coal, but still the mainly from Russia

What goes on in Poland on the 13th of January.

Poland imports less coal, but still the mainly from Russia

COVID-19 pandemic only temporarily slowed down coal imports to Poland. Data from the nine months of last year show that it will be the lowest in 2018-2020, but the percentage share of Russian fuel is still the highest.

After five months of 2020, when coal imports had collapsed, it seemed that for the first time in years Poland would have single-digit black gold imports. However, the statistics make us disillusioned. In the middle of the year, imports rebounded, obviously not to such volumes as in previous years. While in April Poland imported 0.5 million tons of coal, in May, ie “without any mode”, it was already a million tons and from month to month there was more and more of it. According to Eurostat data, 8.86 million tons of coal came to Poland after three quarters of 2020, including 6.52 million tons from Russia. The share of Russian coal in this period was the highest in years. For comparison, in 2019 it amounted to 67 percent (raw material imports after nine months amounted to 11.97 million tons, including 8.02 million tons from Russia). In turn, in the record-breaking year for coal imports to Poland in 2018, in the period January – September, as many as 13.65 million tons (more than the full-year import in 2020!) Came to Poland from abroad, including 9.9 million tons from Russia, which was 72.5 percent of all deliveries.