During the first 11 months of 2020 and 2019 Morocco’s imports of coal stood equally at 9.2 MT, Argus reports.
Simultaneously, the proportion of supplies from Russia has increased from 57% to 87% year on a year, reaching 8 MT in 2020.
Russia’s dominance was mainly down to the fact that Cyprus-registered company ‘Carbo One’, which sources the majority of its coal from Russia and is associated in the media with some Russian businessmen, won tenders for coal supplies for Morocco’s two largest power stations — Jorf Lasfar (2 GW) and Safi (1.4 GW).
The increase in Russia’s coal supplies was partly due to low coal prices in 2020 and a decline in coal deliveries from the USA, which fell from 31% of the country’s supply in 2019 to 9% in 2020.
Russian SUEK (Siberia) and KRU (Kemerovo oblast) were the largest suppliers of coal to Morocco.