KIEV, March 3 – Coal stocks at Ukraine's power plants have fallen to a record low level of 768,000 tons, with the required level set at three million tons, Mykola Azarov, the acting chairman of the Regions Party faction, said in Parliament on Wednesday.

"Such a critically low level has never occurred over the period of Ukraine's independence," he said.

In February alone, the power plants were short of almost one million tons of coal supplies, he said, whereas coal shortfalls since the beginning of 2010 have hit 1.5 million tons.