By Pavel Polityuk and Yuliia Dysa
KYIV (Reuters) -Ukraine has stopped production at its coking coal mine in Pokrovsk, which feeds the country’s steel industry, because of the proximity of advancing Russian forces, two industry sources told Reuters on Monday.
The facility in the embattled city of Pokrovsk is Ukraine’s only mine that produces coking coal needed for the country’s once giant steelmaking industry, which has withered since Russia’s February 2022 invasion.
Russia has long been closing in on the key logistics hub of Pokrovsk, and DeepState, a Ukrainian military analytical blog based on open-source intelligence, said Moscow’s troops were less than 2 km (1.24 miles) from one of the mine shafts.
“They have all stopped working now,” one source said.
“There’s no production there, they’re only working on the surface,” the second source said, adding that an evacuation was underway.
Steelmaker Metinvest BV, which owns the facility, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. It said last month it had halted some operations at the site.
Ukraine produced about 3.5 million tons of coke in 2023, according to the national coke association, exclusively using coking coal mined in Pokrovsk.
Its steelmakers’ union said last year the potential closure of the mine could cause steel production to slump to between 2 million and 3 million metric tons in 2025 from 7.6 million in 2024.
Steel production has already suffered since Russia’s invasion, which has led to the destruction of the country’s leading steel plants.
Ukraine, formerly a major steel producer and exporter, reported a 70.7% drop in output in 2022 to 6.3 million tons. It fell to 6 million tons in 2023.
DeepState, which uses analysis to map out battle lines, says Russian troops are advancing to the villages of Kotlyne and Udachne where the mine has facilities. It also has a facility in the village of Pishchane, which Russia said on Monday it had captured.
Producers have said they hope to find alternative sources of coking coal from elsewhere in Ukraine should the Pokrovsk mine be seized by Russian troops, but imports would inevitably be needed, hiking costs.
Metal exports were worth almost $4.4 billion in 2024, according to trade data – money needed to keep Ukraine going almost three years into Russia’s full-scale invasion.
(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk and Yuliia DysaEditing by Tom Balmforth and Jan Harvey)
