Rosgeo discovers new coal deposits on Sakhalin Island

Russia’s state-run Rosgeo this week announced that it had discovered significant new coal deposits on Sakhalin Island off the country’s Far East coast. The deposits were found in Yuzhno-Berezovsky and lie outside of the mammoth Sakhalin integrated oil and gas development area, the company confirmed.
Although Russia has some of the largest coal reserves in the world and coal power accounts for around 14% of its energy consumption, the industry has been in decline over the past two decades as oil and gas production has accelerated; but Rosgeo’s announcement comes just a few months after the opening of the Arshanovsky open cut mine southern Siberia’s Khakassia Republic  – Russia’s largest yet – and the unveiling of plans to build new coal ports, also in Siberia, giving the industry easier access to the Asian markets of China, Japan, and Korea.