Impact of basic risks, sanctions and adverse market conditions on the coal industry development in Russia over the period to 2040. Part I: External and internal challenges critical to the coal industry development and its performance scenarios in the post-crisis period

Abstract

The growth prospects for coal production in Russia are not so clearly evident as it may seem. Today there is a wide range of alternative avenues of advancement for the coal sector, which can be explained by the external and internal challenges critical to the development of the coal industry in Russia. The basic risks potentially capable to cause the most adverse effect on the coal industry performance in the years to come include: the coal market slump in the world; ecological risks; risks due to sanctions imposed by the USA and European Union to restrict import of new technologies and attraction of financial assets; social risks. Aiming to evaluate the impact of these risks on the coal industry performance in the coming years, four look-ahead scenarios are developed: baseline, hazardous (baseline), moderate, and hazardous (moderate). The moderate scenario is found to be more innovative than the baseline scenario. The highest rate of introduction of technological innovations is representative of the technologies with lower level of the predicted output of coal. This study has been partly supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research in the framework of R&D Project No. 18-010-00467 Development of Economic Indicators and Production Data for the Coal Industry Development in Russia up to 2035 with the Changing Vector of Global Technological Innovation due to Implementation of Industry 4.0 Program.