(Montel) Europe could burn around 185m tonnes more coal than previously anticipated by 2030 due to reduced Russian gas imports following the country’s invasion of Ukraine, an analyst at McCloskey said on Monday.
“Europe will run coal much harder this decade than pre-war expectations,” said Sareena Patel, associate director for thermal coal, at the Coaltrans conference in Madrid.
She noted that Europe imported 140bcm of gas from Russia in 2021, prior to the war in Ukraine, but this was expected to fall to just over 23bcm this year.
EU countries now want to wean themselves off Russian pipeline gas by 2027.
As such, annual coal demand post-2023 was around 20m tonnes/year higher than anticipated before the conflict.
“The extra burn [to 2030] is around 185m tonnes of high CV coal,” she noted.
Europe would likely burn around 60m tonnes in 2023, albeit down from 84m tonnes last year, Patel told Montel.
Most of the additional volumes would come from South Africa, with the US and Colombia being other key suppliers, she said.
