Ildar Saleev, the CEO of DTEK Energy shared this on his Facebook page.
According to him, it is a bit too early to summarize the company's activities this year as the operations of DTEK Energy's power generating, coal mining, and machine-building enterprises are still in full swing amidst the ongoing heating season, but some things can already be shared now.
“Our miners have put the 26th coal face into operation. It was the last one planned for the year. In general, miners believe that the “winter” coal faces were particularly “tricky”. One of the most recent and difficult ones was put into operation despite the extremely difficult rock geology. Excessive pressure, soil convergence, water content... It was the first time in 20 years that we faced and fought through such a severe environment in one of our mines. Miners will develop the new coal face by moving from the 600 m horizon up, to the one at 470 m,” Saleev said.
He also noted that the miners admirably stood up to the challenges these new coal faces presented. After all, there is a lot at stake — maintaining sufficient fuel supplies for Ukrainian thermal power plants so that they operate both during the heating season and peak demand periods following it.
“I can state that the miners have worked even harder and admirably coped with the task this year too. The extraction volumes are at the planned level. For this purpose, we've invested about UAH 7 billion in Ukrainian coal production over the year, which is almost twice as much as in 2022,” Saleev noted.
According to him, although the company's priority is to use in-house coal extracted in Ukraine, DTEK Energy has also created an additional “safety cushion” for the heating season using imported fuel. As of today, more than half of the contracted amount — which is almost 150,000 tons of steam coal — has already been delivered from Poland. By the end of the heating season, the company plans to import 280,000 tons of fuel.
“We don't intend to stop here as we all have the same task — to fight on the energy frontlines so that Ukrainians have electricity and heat,” Saleev assured.
To read more about how DTEK Energy is preparing for and getting through the heating season follow the link: Preparing for the Autumn-Winter Season (dtek.com)