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Australia could boost Ukrainian energy security with coal, uranium

Australia could export coal and uranium to Ukraine to help ease Kiev's over reliance on Russian energy exports, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said on Thursday.

Russia has this year annexed Ukraine's Crimea peninsula and given support to separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine, driving relations between Moscow and the West to the lowest point since the Cold War.

Last month Russia suspended coal supplies to Ukraine, a blow to domestic energy suppliers who are struggling with a severe lack of raw fuel for power plants due to the conflict in the industrial east.

Abbott, who has been among the most vocal critics of Russian President Vladimir Putin's actions in Ukraine following the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 in July, proposed Australian commodities as a secure alternative.

"Australia is an energy super power and energy security is very important to Ukraine, particularly given its current vulnerability to supply," Abbott said.

Poroshenko, who is on the second day of a three-day state visit to Australia, signalled Ukraine's interest in importing both coal and uranium.

"We discussed today the possibility of co-operation in the sphere of nuclear energy," he told reporters. "There is the possibility for Ukraine to buy Australian uranium for our nuclear power stations."

Russia has been accused of using its enormous energy reserves as a weapon against former Soviet republics, and Ukraine is eager to diversify supply to avoid more disruptions.

Ukraine had been set to rely on Russian coal to get through the current winter after the war disrupted supplies to thermal power plants (TPP), which provide around 40 percent of the country's electricity.

Australia and Russia signed a bilateral agreement in 2007 enabling uranium exports, but Abbott halted the trade earlier this year in retaliation over MH17.

Australia, which has no nuclear power plants of its own, is one of the world's top exporters of uranium, mining 7,529 tonnes of uranium in fiscal 2011/12, worth A$782 million ($653.83 million), according to government figures.

Australia is the world's second biggest exporter of thermal coal, after Indonesia.

Source: Reuters