KIEV, December 15. /TASS/. Ukraine hopes to supply coal and uranium from Australia, a senior aide to Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said on Monday.

The issue was discussed during President Poroshenko’s state visit to Australia, said Valery Chaly, deputy head of Poroshenko's administration.

“Uranium supplies have also been under discussion,” he said. “We are talking today about diversifying these supplies to Ukraine. We have already started negotiations and we expect further development of the situation.”

“Coal supplies are among the projects as well. Australia can supply directly with no middlemen involved,” Chaly added.

Ukraine has a shortage of thermal coal used in power generation, and in September the country had to cut twice energy exports to the European Union and to cut off energy exports to Belarus.

Coal imported from South Africa happened to be of inadequate quality.

“The coal from the South African Republic does not burn at our thermal power plants,” Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Vitaly Yarema said then. “It is a crime and it should be punished.”

A contract to receive one million tons of coal from South Africa was concluded by the Ukrainian government in August. The first vessel carrying 84,200 tons aboard arrived in Ukraine on October 23, the second with 79,000 tons - on October 30 and on November 9 another batch of 85,000 tons of thermal coal arrived in the country.