DTEK energy holding, owned by Rinat Akhmetov, believes that the quickest way of ending the shortage of coal in the country is removing coal from the antiterrorist operation (ATO) zone, Head of the DTEK Anti-Crisis Center Dmytro Sakharuk said at a press conference in Kyiv on Thursday.

"At present the cheapest and ecologically friendly kilowatt per hour is coal laying in Donbas, and which can be simply moved to our plants. At present, around 3 million tonnes of anthracite coal is there," he said.

He said fears that state money paid for coal could go to the rebels are groundless.

Sakharuk said that Ukraine could pay for coal from state coalmines which will be re-registered from the ATO zone to other regions, and that money paid out as wages could be monitored

He said that DTEK has not re-registered its own coalmines – DTEK Rovenkiantracit and DTEK Sverdlovantracit – from the ATO zone.

Sakharuk noted that DTEK is not planning to switch its power units to consume gas coal, enough of which is on the market.

"UAH 500 million per unit and the switch from one type of coal to the other foresees the rebuilding of a half of the unit: the generators and turbine are the same, while the boiler is changed. Now there is no money to do this," he said.

He said that the company hopes to resume anthracite coal supplies.