Stavalj Mine Requests Green Permit for Excavation of Another 168 Million Tons of Brown Coal, But Its Debatable Whether It Will Ever See the Light of Day

The Ministry of Environmental Protection has notified the public that JP PEU Resavica, RMU Stavalj-Sjenica, has filed the request for deciding on the necessity of the environmental impact assessment of the project of the exploitation of the east and west fields of the Stavalj mine.

Currently, brown coal, which is considered quality coal, even environmentally friendly, due to a lower percentage of sulfur and ash, is only excavated from the central field in Stavalj, where the reserves, according to the website of RMU Stavalj, amount to 16,321,145 tons.

The current plan is for the exploitation to also expand to the western field, where there are 150 million tons of gold, and to the eastern one, which holds 18 million tons of coal reserves.

Gojko Radeka, the head of the BZR service at the Stavalj mine, has confirmed so for eKapija.

– There are enormous reserves of brown coal in said fields and our goal is to get the exploitation right in the entire area, and primarily due to one part of the eastern field for which we already have a project and where, in the first phase, excavations would be done between Stup and Savalj. There’s enough coal there for a thirty-year exploitation – says Radeka.

Still, he notes that it is debatable whether coal will ever be excavated there:

– In the central field, we can excavate for another 6 to 10 years at least, but we decided to obtain the exploitation right so that somebody else wouldn’t, so when the times comes for it, it will come. It takes 10 years to open a mine, and considering the trends in the EU and turning to renewable energy sources, I doubt it will ever happen.

He points out that there is already a study for the western field, which the Czechs have prepared, as well as plans for the opening of a thermal power plant, but adds that nobody is mentioning that anymore.

B. P.

JP PEU Resavica

Ministarstvo zaštite životne sredine Republike Srbije

JP PEU Resavica

RMU Štavalj Sjenica

Ministry of Environmental Protection

TPP Kolubara

Gojko Radema

brown coal

ecological coal

thermal power plant Stavalj

request for deciding on the necessity of the environmental impact assessment of the project of the exploitation of the east and west fields of the Stavalj mine

coal reserves in Stavalj mine

underground coal exploitation