OKD mined 1,202 million tonnes of hard coal in Czechia's Karviná region last year

OKD mined 1,202 million tonnes of hard coal in the Karviná region last year, meeting its target. This year, it plans to mine 1,145 million tonnes, mainly coking coal. In the second half of the year, it will focus on building sealing dams and preparations for ending mining. OKD CEO Roman Sikora told Czech Television (ČT) today. In 2023, the company mined 1.3 million tonnes of coal. It plans to end mining after extracting the last longwall faces in the first quarter of next year.

OKD is the only producer of hard coal in Czechia. In recent years, however, the company has already ended mining at most of its mines because it had not been profitable over the long term. It now mines only at the ČSM Mine, at the North and South sites.

„We are currently preparing three longwall faces (mining areas) for extraction, which should start operating at the beginning of February. Sometime around the middle of this year, in June or July, we will stop preparing new longwall faces for extraction. We should mine a total of six longwall faces this year, and from mid-year we should focus on the technical construction of sealing dams. We expect to build around 30 of them this year. In total, around 100 dams will have to be built so that we are prepared to end mining,“ Sikora told ČT.

The technical closure of the mine mainly involves building sealing dams. The company will also have to deal with surface structures, most of which it will demolish. According to the CEO, the company plans to turn the site of the current mine into a brownfield suitable for business, either its own or that of other companies.

„We want to continue operating after mining ends, so we will have to find a way to capture mine gas, which will continue to be produced for around 15 to 20 years after mining ends. That is good for us, because we can do business with it,“ the CEO said.

According to him, ensuring there were enough workers for mining had recently been a huge problem. OKD currently employs approximately 3,300 people, but the company will be laying off workers this year. The company's financial performance last year was affected by the price of coal, which, according to the CEO, is constantly falling, making coal increasingly difficult to sell. Last year, the company also faced the significant loss of an important customer when the Liberty Ostrava steelworks went bankrupt.

„We effectively lost a market for 150,000 tonnes of coking coal. I am very pleased that our sales team managed to make up for this loss very quickly,“ Sikora said.

According to him, OKD is currently supplying fairly significant volumes to Ukraine, to the areas of Kryvyi Rih, Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk.