Coal mining in Ukraine

Coal mining in Ukraine is an important industry after which there existed government level ministry.

Coal mining in Ukraine is often associated with coal-rich Donets basin. However the Donetsk basin is not the only coal mining region, other being Lviv-Volhynian basin and Dnieper brown coal mining basin. The Donets basin located in the eastern Ukraine is the most developed and much bigger coal mining region in the country.

Ukraine was until recently, the third largest coal producer in Europe. In 1976, national production was 218 million metric tonnes. By 2016, production had dropped to 41 million metric tonnes. The Donets Black Coal Basin in the eastern Ukraine, with 90% of the nation's reserves, suffers from three connected problems: (1) mines are not profitable enough to sustain capital investment, resulting in twenty-year old mining equipment and processes, (2) the government, taking advice from the International Monetary Fund, has discontinued $600 million annual mining subsidies, and (3) the Kiev government refuses to buy from rebel-held mines.

Coal mining began in Ukraine in 1870. In 1913, Donetz produced 87% of the coal in the Russian Empire. It produced 50% of the metallurgical coal of the USSR. Like other Soviet enterprises, coal companies provided social facilities including schools and hospitals

Ukraine's coal reserves are estimated at 60 billion tonnes, of which 23 billion are proven and probable, and 10 billion tonnes are economically extractable. According to the Ukrainian mining trade union, coal constitutes 95% of Ukraine's domestic energy resources.

Ninety percent of Ukraine's coal reserves are located in the Donets Coalfield (easternmost part of the country). Control of this portion of the country is disputed. Russian-backed rebels claim sovereignty over the region.

Two other coalfields include one in the northwest, the Lviv-Volhynian Coalfield, between Lviv and Volodymyr-Volynskyi. Another, the Dnieper Coalfield in central Ukraine, offers lignite (brown coal), but the mining of lignite stalled in the 1990s.

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