ON INTERMEDIARY COAL SALES SCHEMES AND ANTIMONOPOLY RESPONSE MEASURES

The territorial departments of the agency for the protection and development of competition completed the analysis of the state of the competitive environment in the coal retail market in 2022 and the first half of 2023.

End consumers purchase municipal coal on the right of ownership or other legal grounds by regional coal operators with the appropriate infrastructure.

In turn, they buy coal directly from producers (coal mines) or from coal traders who resell coal, they have neither railway dead ends nor storage facilities.

Earlier, until 2022, the main producers of municipal coal (Karazhira and Shubarkol coal) sold coal to unproductive intermediaries in the amount of 97% from 2 to 18% per year.

Further, coal traders with an average surcharge of 40-45% resold utility coal to the end sellers-coal dead ends.

In this regard, in order to avoid these intermediary schemes and free access of coal dead ends to the size of coal mining enterprises, from 2021, the volume of coal has been increased from 10% to 50%, subject to mandatory exchange trading directly to coal dead ends, which includes population consumption. In the future, this share is planned to increase to 80%.

In 2024, a set of measures will be taken to improve coal exchange trading, including tightening the requirements for exchanges, access to trading, etc.

The agency also plans to conduct an analysis of the competitive state of the wholesale coal market in order to identify the main power owners, as well as regulate the sale of coal (over-the-counter) part of primary supplies to qualified suppliers.

In general, these measures will stabilize the rise in prices for municipal coal, reduce intermediary schemes and increase the number of coal suppliers and competition between them.

More information about the analysis can be found at the link: https://www.gov.kz/memleket/entities/zk/documents/details/622914?lang=ru