Romania spent $6.7bn on mine restructuring to no avail
At the end of last week, an engineer and four electricians aged
between 36 and 41 were killed in the latest accident that has
occurred in a mine of Romania, whose closure had been under
discussion for almost a year.
The tragedy of Uricani, a mine owned by Compania Naţională a
Huilei, is however bringing to the surface 20 years of failed
attempts at reorganising a field that has so far swallowed up
around $6.7bn in subsidies, is generating annual losses of hundreds
of million euros and debts of billions, but that is continuously
claiming human lives.
"In 1990-2006 the state spent $6.3bn to support the mining sector,
structured along product subsidies, social protection subsidies,
capital allocation for investments. In 2007-2009 state aid granted
for the mineral coal mining industry revolved around 1bn RON and
capital allocation for lignite of 119.3m RON," Economy Ministry
representatives told ZF when questioned about mining restructuring
costs.
Despite these billions of dollars that were spent, coal mines are
still making victims, in the context where post-1990 statistical
data show an accident out of three is registered in the extraction
industry alone and around 60% of total accidents in this industry
occur in Valea Jiului.
As regards Compania Naţională a Huilei, one of the biggest black
holes of the economy, its overhauling has been dragging on for
years, despite the mountain of drawn up strategies.