The Coal Industry Today and Tomorrow

The large-scale transformation of Russian industry in response to Western economic sanctions calls for reassessments of the available resources and capabilities of existing enterprises. This is especially important for the fuel industry. The goal here is to show the changes in the structure and state of the fuel industry and to assess the condition of its basic component: the coal industry. The classification of the fuel industry within a normative framework is reviewed. A method is proposed for assessing the state of the coal industry in terms of the major enterprises: Oscar Properties Holding, SDS Ugol, Siberian Coal Energy Company (SUEK), Ural Mining and Metallurgical Company (UGMK), Mechel, and EVRAZ. The conclusions of this assessment are inconsistent, but the coal industry is not in crisis; the share value of some enterprises has increased. This is mainly associated with the emergence of exchange mechanisms, by which real price indices for coal sales may be formulated. The approach adopted here and the results may be used by coal enterprises to predict their capabilities and by government bodies for overall industry forecasts.