Coal production and exports in Kazakhstan showed a mixed picture in 2023

Kazakhstan's production of hard coal and lignite coal decreased by 1.2% to 116.3 million tonnes in 2023 compared to 2022.
At the same time, imports of hard coal and solid fuel from coal increased by 32.3% to 701.5 thousand tonnes. The main suppliers were Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Italy and the US.

Coking coal and semi-coking coal (residue from the distillation of coal in furnaces) were imported less by 13.7% (536.4 thousand tonnes) from Russia, China and Kyrgyzstan.

The export picture for 2023 is also mixed. Hard coal exports from Kazakhstan fell slightly to 28.4 million tonnes (-0.7%). A notable 8.9% decline in shipments to Russia (16.9 million tonnes) was compensated by an increase in exports to other countries, such as Poland increasing by 1.6 times to 2.7 million tonnes, to Latvia by 2.5 times to 2.3 million tonnes, Uzbekistan by 2.6 times to 1.2 million tonnes, Estonia by two times to 545.8 thousand tonnes, and China by 52.2 times to 762.2 thousand tonnes.

There was registered the growth of lignite export by 20% (up to 2.7 million tonnes) to such countries as Uzbekistan, Russia and Poland.