PRAGUE: Czech state-owned hard coal miner OKD will keep its CSM mine running until 2025, officials said, extending its life as Europe deals with an energy crisis caused by soaring prices.

The state had earlier this year approved the continuation of mining at the site in the country’s northeast until 2023. “The decision to continue mining until 2023...has proven to be key to handling the current energy crisis,” Finance Minister Zbynek Stanjura said in a statement published on the ministry’s website on Friday. “Unfortunately the price of heating will rise next year for more than 100,000 households in (this) region, but far less than if we did not have OKD coal available.

“I see the company’s medium-term outlook as very realistic.” OKD said it had sold out its capacity of 1.1 million tonnes of coal production for 2023, and 90% of that for 2024. An environmental impact study underway is a condition for continuing after 2023, the ministry and OKD said.