The Ministry of Industrial Policy of Ukraine is examining the issue of increasing the sales of domestic coking coal and for this purpose may impose the licensing of coking coal imports to Ukraine.
As SteelOrbis previously reported, in order to increase demand for domestic coking coal, Ukraine had intended to impose a five million mt quota on coking coal imports for 2009. However, this move failed to find support as it was considered unreasonable.
In 2009, taking into consideration the country's decreased steel product output, Ukrainian steelmakers require about 22 million mt of coking coal in order to secure their production schedules. Domestic coking coal production can supply local steelmakers with 17 million mt of this raw material, while the remaining five million mt must be imported. In 2008 Ukraine imported around 10 million mt of coking coal.
In the first five months of 2009, Ukraine imported 2.8 million mt of coking coal, i.e. 56 percent of the volume imported in the same period of last year.