The following is a list of European countries by coal production in 2014, based mostly on the Statistical Review of World Energy published in 2015 by British Petroleum, [1] ranking nations with coal production larger than 0.05 percent of world production. Amounts are expressed in tonnes of oil equivalent.
| Rank | Country/Region | Coal production (million tonnes of oil equivalent) | share of total (%) |
|---|---|---|---|
| — | World | 3,933.4 | 100 |
| — |  European Union | 151.4 | 3.9 |
| 1 |  Russia | 170.9 | 4.3 |
| 3 |  Poland | 55.0 | 1.4 |
| 4 |  Germany | 43.8 | 1.1 |
| 5 |  Ukraine | 31.5 | 0.8 |
| 6 |  Turkey | 17.8 | 0.5 |
| 7 |  Czech Republic | 17.3 | 0.4 |
| 8 |  United Kingdom | 7.0 | 0.2 |
| 9 |  Greece | 6.3 | 0.2 |
| 10 |  Bulgaria | 5.2 | 0.1 |
| 11 |  Romania | 4.4 | 0.1 |
| 12 |  Hungary | 2.0 | 0.1 |
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when dead plant matter decays into peat and is converted into coal by the heat and pressure of deep burial over millions of years. Vast deposits of coal originate in former wetlands—called coal forests—that covered much of the Earth's tropical land areas during the late Carboniferous (Pennsylvanian) and Permian times. However, many significant coal deposits are younger than this and originate from the Mesozoic and Cenozoic eras.
A fossil fuel is a hydrocarbon-containing material formed underground from the remains of dead plants and animals that humans extract and burn to release energy for use. The main fossil fuels are coal, petroleum and natural gas, which humans extract through mining and drilling. Fossil fuels may be burnt to provide heat for use directly, to power engines, or to generate electricity.
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