§ Baroness Miller of Hendonasked Her Majesty's Government:
At current prices, what is the cost of imported coal used in coal-fired power stations; and what is the cost of coal mined in the United Kingdom. [HL1607]
§ Lord Sainsbury of TurvilleAs the coal industry and the power stations are private companies this information is not available through official data, to protect the confidentiality of individual contracts.
The department does, however, publish the costs of coal as purchased by UK generators in Energy Trends. This showed that as at quarter 4 1998 the average price of coal purchased by UK generators was £29.75/tonne.
Whilst it is not possible to give costs of imported coal to the UK for electricity generation, data do exist on the costs of imported steam coal (some of which is used by industry and will be of a different quality and value to that used by electricity generators). Data from Customs show that the costs to the UK port (CIF) of imported steam coal was £24.69/tonne in Q4 1998.
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