Public joint-stock company Centrenergo and the Energy and Coal Industry Ministry of Ukraine are considering purchase of coal from Australia, Director of Trypilska thermal power plant (TPP, part of Centrenergo) Petro Kravets has said.

"Today the company jointly with the ministry is mulling the signing of a contract to buy coal in Australia," he said.

Kravets said that the purchase procedure is long and if the agreement is reached coal would be supplied by the next heating season.

He also said that earlier Trypilska TPP received a first part of coal arrived to the Yuzhny port from South Africa.

"The first batch of coal was transported by rail (43 wagons) to Trypilska TPP yesterday," he said.

He said that the price of coal from South Africa is $56 at port. The quality of coal from South Africa meets the requirements of the plant.

"African and Donbas coal suit our plant… We received coal with caloric content from 3,700 kilocalories (mud coal) to 5,700 kilocalories from Donbas, from 5,400 to 5,700 kilocalories on average. Caloric content of African coal is 5,200-5,400 kilocalories. The first batch of 190,000 tonnes from South Africa [under the contract of Ukrinterenergo] – caloric content was 5,070 kilocalories," he said.

Kravets said that the price of coal from South Africa allows the plant to operate with profits.

He said that coal from Russia was bought in winter 2014 only when it was strictly necessary, and it does not suit Trypilska TPP.

"Russian coal is of good quality and it does not suit us. We received Russian coal with caloric content of around 7,000 kilocalories. The specifics of our boilers do not allow burning all coal and it is emitted," he said.

Kravets also said that this year Trypilska TPP plans to generate over 1.8 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity.

"In 2015 we generated around 1-1.2 billion kWh… The target for this year is based on the indicators of the previous year – around 1.8 kWh. It is obvious that if we retain the trend this year, we would over-fulfill it," he said.

The plant requires 150,000-180,000 tonnes of coal a month to generate this amount of electricity.

At present, around 200,000 tonnes of coal is stored at the plant's warehouses.