A New Coal Mine Will Be Opened in Poland in 2023

Australia’s Prairie Mining has confirmed its intention to open a coal mine in southeast Poland by 2023, saying it was confident the $632 million (558 million euro) project would be profitable, a report said Monday. Prairie’s local subsidiary PD Co will submit a request for a mine concession in the Lublin region, close to the border with Ukraine, the group’s chief executive Ben Stoikovich told Polish news agency PAP. Construction on the mine is expected to start in 2018, with Prairie estimating the coal deposits at 700 million tonnes, of which 140 million tonnes can be exploited. Despite attempts by many countries to move away from fossil fuels, Stoikovich said he expected demand for coal to remain strong in Europe in the coming years. PD Co president Janusz Jakimowicz said the company expects to produce coal from the new mine at around $25 a tonne. Poland’s dependence on coal — 70 percent of households use it for heat and antiquated coal-fired power plants generate nearly all the country’s electricity — has given it some of the most polluted air in the European Union. But rock-bottom global coal prices are driving inefficient Polish mines to bankruptcy, threatening 100,000 heavily subsidised — and politicised — mining jobs.