OREANDA-NEWS  Over the past year, Russian coal supplies to India increased 3.6 times, from 2.35 million tons to 8.43 million. Such data is transmitted by the Indian industry consulting agency Coalmint.

Russian exporters were able to achieve this result with the help of serious discounts — against the background of the EU embargo that came into force in August, companies offered coal cheaper than suppliers from South Africa and Australia.

In July, the cost of coal on the world market reached $ 400 per ton, but Russian fuel, according to the Center for Energy Development, was exported at a discount of $ 200. By October, discounts reached 70 percent.

To date, the share of Russian coal in Indian imports is insignificant. In total, the country purchased 161.8 million tons of coal in 2022, while 107.5 million tons came from Indonesia (plus 44.8 percent for the year). At the same time, Coalmint expects that in the coming years India will reduce imports due to the intention to increase its own production.

For Russia, the Indian market has become one of the ways to compensate for the loss of premium European. According to the December estimate of the International Energy Agency (IEA), in 2022, the export of thermal coal from Russia will fall by 10 percent, to 157 million tons (there are no official data yet). At the same time, the organization's experts expect that in the next three years the decline will continue due to an increase in production in India and China.