Artur, 57, a pensioner, left Swidnik, about 30 kilometers (18 miles) from the mine in eastern Poland on Tuesday, hoping to buy several tonnes of coal for himself and his family. “Toilets were installed today, but it has no running water,” he said, after three nights of sleeping in his little red hatchback in a line of trucks, tractors pulling trailers and private cars. Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register “This is beyond imagination, people are sleeping in their cars. I remember the time of communism, but it never occurred to me that we could go back to something even worse.” Artur’s household is one of 3.8 million in Poland that rely on coal for heating and are now facing shortages and price hikes after Poland and the European Union imposed an embargo on Russian coal following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February. Poland banned the markets with immediate effect in April, while the bloc ordered they be phased out by August. While Poland produces over 50 million tonnes from its own mines each year, imported coal, most of it from Russia, is a household staple due to competitive prices and the fact that Russian coal is sold in lumps more convenient for home use. Rising demand has forced Bogdanka and other state-controlled mines to sell rations or offer the fuel to individual buyers through online platforms, in limited quantities. Arthur, who did not want to give his full name, said he had collected documents from his extended family in the hope of getting all their fuel at once. The mine planned to sell fuel to about 250 households on Friday and will continue sales over the weekend to reduce waiting times, Dorota Tsoma, spokeswoman for the Bogdanka mine, told Reuters. The limits are in place to prevent hoarding and speculation, or even selling points in the queue, Choma said. Aerial view of a coal mine in Bogdanka, Poland, August 26, 2022. REUTERS/Kuba Stezycki read more Like all Polish coal mines, Bogdanka typically sells most of the coal it produces to power plants. Last year, it sold less than 1% of its output to individual customers, so it lacks the logistics to sell fuel directly to retail buyers. Lukasz Horbacz, head of the Polish Coal Chamber of Commerce, said the decline in Russian imports began in January when Moscow began using rail lines for military transport. “But the main reason for the shortages is the embargo that came into effect immediately. It turned the market upside down,” he told Reuters. A spokesman for Weglokoks, a state-owned coal trader tasked by the government to boost imports from other countries, declined to comment, while the climate ministry was unavailable for comment. Government officials have repeatedly said Poland will have enough fuel to meet demand. In recent years, Poland has been the most vocal critic of the EU’s climate policy and a staunch defender of coal, which generates up to 80% of its electricity. But coal production is steadily declining as mining costs rise to deeper levels. Coal consumption remained mostly stable, prompting a gradual increase in imports. In 2021, Poland imported 12 million tons of coal, of which 8 million tons came from Russia and were used by households and small heating plants. In July, Poland ordered two state-controlled companies to import several million tonnes of fuel from other sources, including Indonesia, Colombia and Africa, and introduced subsidies for homeowners facing a doubling or tripling of coal prices from last winter “Up to 60% of those using coal for heating may be affected by energy poverty,” Horbacz said. Back in Bogdanka, Piotr Maciejewski, 61, a local farmer who joined the queue on Tuesday, said he was prepared for a long wait. “My tractor stays in the tail, I go home to sleep,” he said. Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register Report by Marek Strzelecki and Kuba Stezycki, Edited by Ros Russell Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
