§ Mr. Kevin HughesTo ask the President of the Board of Trade what figures he has on the costs per gigajoule of coal imports into the United Kingdom.
§ Mr. Eggar[holding answer 30 November 1993]: The average prices of coal imported into the United Kingdom from January to September 1993—based on prices at the port of entry—are estimated from data available for Customs and Excise. This data provide information in £ per tonne and this has been converted to £ per gigajoule using a conversion factor of 26 gigajoules per tonne. The resulting prices of all coal imports and steam coal imports are as follows:
Coal type Cost per gigajoule (£) Steam coal imports 1.31 All coal imports 1.44 These prices are averages for coal of different grades and different calorific values with a variety of industrial and domestic uses. They include cost of transhipment from 763W other EC ports. The data cannot be used to distinguish the price of imports to power stations. But in the European Community as a whole the overall price of imports to power stations from extra-EC countries was £1.08/gigajoule for the first quarter of 1993.