Raspadskaya on Friday pledged to maintain supplies to six domestic clients as it faces slumping sales, protests by workers and investigations into fatal explosions at its biggest mine.
The six steelmakers include two units of Evraz Group, one owned by Mechel and another by Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works, Raspadskaya said in a statement. "Raspadskaya will consider supplying other traditional customers as soon as output recovers," it said.
Raspadskaya on May 19 declared "force majeure" on supply contracts, allowing it to miss agreed deliveries, after the blasts that killed 90 miners and rescuers. The explosions on May 8 and 9 that ripped apart Russia's biggest underground mine may stall ambitions among coking coal producers to expand exports of the steelmaking raw material to Asia, just as prices soar.
Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin will host a meeting this week to try to stabilize domestic coking coal supplies, his aide, Rustam Kazharov, said by phone. Sechin recommended that producers curb exports to satisfy the needs of local steelmakers, Interfax reported Thursday.
Kazharov declined to comment on the news report.
As many as 3,000 people met in the center of Mezhdurechensk on May 14 to demand "fair pay" after the mine was shut, said retired worker Vladimir Chernykh, who spoke to reporters on behalf of protesters at the gathering.
"I lost four colleagues from my crew in the disaster," miner Vladimir Taminen, 44, said in an interview. "People are taking risks and neglect safety to earn more. The reality is there is practically no other job here."
Dmitry Novozhilov, 20, another miner at Raspadskaya, said his co-workers who fled following the blasts described how they had to step over bodies to escape.
"I came to the mine the day after the blasts," Novozhilov said. "It looked terrible. The five-story administrative building and the lift equipment had been crushed as though by some giant hand. Hardware and concrete were scattered all over the surrounding mountains."
The 9-million-metric-tons-a-year mine in Kemerovo may take years to rebuild, chief executive Gennady Kozovoi said. Reviving the facility, which employed about 4,000 people, may cost about 5 billion rubles ($160 million), Kemerovo Governor Aman Tuleyev said.
Raspadskaya produces coal at two smaller mines in the region.
Sales of coking coal concentrate will tumble to 255,000 metric tons in June from a monthly average of 760,000 metric tons so far this year, Raspadskaya said. It will "reconsider" export sales to focus on domestic buyers, the company said.
"If the situation's not resolved, we'll lobby for export duties," Sergei Shatirov, a Federation Council senator for the Kemerovo region and first deputy of its Industry Committee, said last week.
Raspadskaya and domestic rivals Mechel and Sibuglemet have targeted Asian markets in the past two years to diversify sales as local demand faltered.
Igor Volkov, director of Raspadskaya's flagship coal mine, was charged with criminal negligence over the explosions, the Investigative Committee of the Prosecutor General's Office said Thursday.
Raspadskaya fired him in the week.