Asturias plays an important role in the complex energy and geopolitical environment this broke out a year and a half ago with the war in Ukraine. As punishment for military occupation, just a year ago, the European Union imposed an embargo on coal imports from Russia, which until then had provided significant goods traffic to El Musel’s port of Gijón. Countries around the world, particularly Australia, Indonesia and South Africa, the three largest producers of the mine, increased their coal exports to Europe to fill the gap in Russia and to meet the overall recovery in demand for hard coal as fuel. Due to the excessive increase in gasoline prices. In this context, the principality’s ports became warehouses where shipments from all over the planet arrived and were then reloaded on huge ships for export to multiple destinations. Something with a bitter taste in a region that has been characterized by mining power for decades and now has virtually no production.
According to the latest data of the Asturian Economic and Industrial Research Association (Sadei), in the first half of this year, Asturias’ coal sales increased by 497% compared to the same period of 2022, It was generating €431.5 million in revenue compared to €72.1 million at the time. Just as a year ago, coal, coke and briquettes (biofuel blocks in the form of cylinders or bricks) accounted for only 2.3% of the region’s total exports, but now contribute 13%. Thus, they became the third largest item after zinc and iron and steel supplies in Asturia’s foreign sector (meanwhile, these fell by 19.8% and 16.5% respectively). -year rate).
The balance of the first semester reflects the remarkable situation increase imports coal bunkers South Africa (a dramatic increase of more than 2,000% from 7 million to 153 million), Vietnam (up 991%), Japan (541%), Egypt (454%), South Korea (425%), India (217%), or Indonesia (181%). By economic volume, Asturias’ main importer (not just coal but all goods in general) was Australia, with a product value of 374.5 million, up 31% from a year ago. Then came Germany, which reached 221.8 million, with an increase of 31%.
These shipments were then diverted from Asturias to other countries. some of which There were special increases compared to last year These were Indonesia (from EUR 925,000 to EUR 17.7 million with a change of over 1,800%), Croatia (410%), Morocco (342%), Finland (145%) or India (127%). In absolute terms, the main buyers of all goods from Asturias were Germany, Italy and France.
These strong increases are also due to coal’s international revaluation last year, as Sadei’s data represents the economic value of goods, not their volume.
The figures also show that the export record of Asturias this year (3 billion 321 million euros until June) is under good pressure. Logically, sales are calculated on the Asturias balance due to the geographic location from which they are made, but in the coal case, which was a major factor in this explosion, Asturias’ role is storage, not private added value.