At the 5th Coaltrans Russia and CIS conference held in Moscow, Russia's annual coal production was discussed by analysts. Accordingly, the Energy Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences forecast that the country's annual coal output may rise 32 percent to 420 million metric tons by 2030. With the institute's forecast for the industry, the general outlook for growth of Russian coal output and coal exports is positive.
Yuri Plakitkin, deputy director of the institute, said that Russia's exports of coal may increase to between 170 million and 180 million tons under the above output forecast. Russia produced 317 million tons of coal in 2010 and shipped about 115.7 million tons, according to Russia's Federal State Statistics Service.
While transportation expenses as a portion of production costs are higher than in other nations, Russian metallurgical coal is competitive on the world market as its higher quality bolsters margins.