Kazakhstan International News Agency reported that from January to September 2023, Kazakhstan’s coal output was 84.8 million tons, a year-on-year decrease of 2.1%. Among them, 3.3 million tons of lignite and 2.7 million tons of clean coal.
Coal mining volume, including lignite and clean coal, mainly comes from Pavlodar and Karaganda: 50.5 million tons and 27.2 million tons respectively. Among them, coal production in Pavlodar Region increased by 0.6%, or 279,300 tons, and coal production in Karaganda Region decreased by 3.6%, or 1 million tons. Abai State (5.7 million tons) and Uletau State (876,800 tons) also produce more coal.
Kazakhstan is almost 100% self-sufficient in coal. The import share from January to August 2023 only accounted for 0.7%, but it increased slightly compared with the same period in 2022 (0.4%). Coal imports increased more than 1.5 times to 491,000 tons.
Coal exports for the whole year decreased by 18.3%, reaching 19.4 million tons from January to August 2023. At the same time, coal sales in the domestic market increased by 5.6% to 55.9 million tons.
In September 2023, the price of bituminous coal increased by 3% that month, the most significant monthly increase in the past two years (in November 2021, the price of bituminous coal increased by 3.7%).
Over the past year, coal prices across Kazakhstan have increased by 12.3% – higher than the 10.8% price increase in September 2022. Among all regions in Kazakhstan, coal prices in Aktobe Region increased the most: 39.2%. This is followed by the Turkestan region (28.8%) and the city of Almaty (23.5%).
Almaty and Karaganda regions saw the smallest price increases: 2.3% and 3.7% respectively. Coal prices in West Kazakhstan remained unchanged, while coal prices in Zhambyl fell by 3.6%.
