UPDATE 1-Russian miner Raspadskaya sees higher core earnings in 2015

(Adds 2015 EBITDA, output forecasts, quotes)

MOSCOW, March 27 (Reuters) - Russian coking coal miner Raspadskaya RASP.MM expects its core earnings to rise in 2015, partly due to a planned 18-percent production increase, its chief executive said on Friday.

While many Russian companies have been hit by a 40-percent decline in the rouble value against the dollar since mid-2014, large exporters like Raspadskaya have benefited as their product became more competitive on dollar-denominated markets.

"We expect our EBITDA to be higher this year than last year," Sergey Stepanov, the company's chief executive (CEO), told a conference call. EBITDA is a measure of earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation.

The company, controlled by Russian steel producer Evraz, posted a 55 percent increase in 2014 EBITDA to $44 million and a net loss of $306 million compared with a loss of $126 million in the previous year. Its revenue declined 19 percent to $443 million.

Analysts on average predict EBITDA to reach $112 million and revenue to climb to $640 million in 2015, according to Thomson Reuters data.

In early February, the company increased prices for most of its domestic contracts and plans to raise them further in the second quarter, he added. Its average first-quarter prices are in a range of 3,200 and 3,300 roubles ($56-57) per tonne.

Half of Raspadskaya's products were exported in 2014, mainly to the Asia-Pacific region, and the company is looking into opportunities in China, India, Turkey and Slovakia, the CEO said.

Raspadskaya, which plans to increase coal production to 12 million tones from 10.2 million tonnes in the previous year, would also like to supply coal to Ukraine once the tension is over, Stepanov said.

Ukraine and Russia have been stuck in a year-long conflict since Russia's annexation of Crimea in early 2014. Fighting in Ukraine's industrial eastern regions with pro-Russian separatists has led to a cut in coal production. ($1 = 57.4750 roubles)