OREANDA-NEWS  The Russian coal industry is facing a new challenge due to a sharp increase in the number of unfair applications for fuel export to ports in the South and Northwest of the Russian Federation. This was stated by Mikhail Glazkov, Deputy General Director of the Russian Railways State Corporation, as quoted by RBC.

In fact, we are talking about the so-called inflated applications, or "cheating" on the part of shippers, he complained. With this scheme, the exporter "overstates the volume of cargo, which is actually not there," Glazkov said. Recently, the number of such applications to ports in the South and Northwest of the country has increased dramatically.

In some periods, their share reached 30 percent at a rate of 2 percent, the deputy head of Russian Railways added. Analysts recorded a sharp increase in the number of inflated applications in January-March 2025. "Then every third car that was on the flight turned out to be superfluous," Glazkov explained. In March alone, such losses amounted to over 150,000 tons of coal per day, or about 4.5 million tons in monthly terms, the top manager concluded.

Earlier, the newspaper Kommersant, citing data from the Institute of Energy and Finance, reported a significant drop in Russian coal exports. By the end of March 2025, the total volume of exports of energy and coking coal from the Baltic port of Ust-Luga fell by 30 percent, and from Vostochny and Nakhodka terminals — by 21 percent. Analysts attributed this trend to a decline in business profitability amid falling global coal prices. As a result, only companies with the necessary transshipment facilities were able to extract any profit from exports.