In Poland, until recently a coal superpower, there is a shortage, and what is available has become 300 percent more expensive in coal warehouses-from about 1,000 zlotys (CZK 5,200) per tonne to 3,000 zlotys (CZK 15,600).
The website wp.pl wrote that Poles buy cheap coal from the OKPaliva (bagged packaged coal) network near the border, for example, in Petrovice near Karviná, but also in other places at extremely low prices-CZK 4,700, or 900 zlotys per tonne.
As soon as people on the Polish side of the border found out about cheap Czech coal, it became dusty, and the warehouses were cleaned to the last bit.
Now it is sold only by Polish traders, who demand about two thousand zlotys (CZK 10,400) per tonne. However, they have only a limited quantity because it sells out in a flash.
“It is a brown coal that looks like peas and provides fewer calories than black coal, but it is still of extremely high quality and is suitable for heating in domestic boilers or stoves,” wp.pl writes.
It adds that Czech sellers have announced that the subsequent delivery of this coal will be in two weeks, but it is not certain, more like a month, and thousands of Poles are interested in it.
According to Wp.pl, mines in Poland are only supplying coal depots with household fuel, at a 17 percent increase over 2021. Some depots have been selling a ton of coal for four thousand zloty (almost 21 thousand crowns) since the weekend.
“In the energy crisis Poland is facing, the government plans to extract about one million tonnes of coal from the tailings around the mine during this winter,” Rzeczpospolita daily said. The fuel from the waste is to be mixed with better-quality coal.
Jaroslaw Kaczyński, head of the ruling Law and Justice party, has already said that despite the anti-smog measures, “it will be necessary for this situation to burn everything except tires or similar harmful things because people in Poland must not be cold”.
Four million households are scavenging where they can.
More than four million households in Poland are heated with coal. They are now struggling to secure it for the winter.
Eight million tonnes that Poland used to import from Russia are missing. After the attack on Ukraine, the country imposed an embargo on these imports.