According to Interfax article published on April 10 , 2023, Russia's Finance Ministry is considering raising the mineral extraction tax (MET) on coal in the fourth quarter of 2023 if the industry has strong financial results in the first quarter of the year, the ministry's press service told Interfax.
"The Finance Ministry is continuing to monitor the situation in the coal industry. If the first quarter has good financial results, we will propose a higher MET for the fourth quarter rather than the imposition of duties. The issue of duties on coal is not being considered right now," the ministry said.
Last fall it emerged that the government was discussing imposing export duties on coal in 2023. However, the authorities ultimately abandoned this measure and confined themselves to imposing a higher MET rate for coal in the amount of 380 rubles per tonne for the period from January 1 to March 31, 2023. This measure was supposed to generate an additional 30 billion rubles in revenue.
The government decided not to impose export duties on thermal and coking coal from the start of 2023, but will continue to monitor the market situation in the first quarter, Deputy Finance Minister Alexei Sazanov said at the time. "We decided that the MET is sufficient. Going forward we will monitor the situation in the first quarter," he said.
At the same time, coal companies will be exempt from paying the windfall tax this year, Sazanov said.
From the beginning of 2022 the base rate of the MET for coking coal was pegged to world prices and is up to 1.5% of the average FOB price of Australia Premium Coking Coal. Previously, a fixed rate of 57 rubles per tonne was used.
The Federal Statistics Service reported that the profits, less losses, of Russian coal companies tumbled 63% year-on-year to 38.9 billion rubles in January; data for February and March have not been released yet. Coal production in Russia slumped 2.3% year-on-year to 70.2 million tonnes in the first two months of 2023.
