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Environment Ministry Recommends Defining Strategic Resources
Wednesday 03 March 2010 Zoom in | Print page
Bratislava, March 3 (TASR) - The Environment Ministry has recommended that the Government should define so-called strategic mineral resources, i.e. non-renewable resources of extraordinary value that should be preserved for future generations.
The Cabinet, which adopted the document at its session on Wednesday, also ordered the ministers of environment (Jozef Medved) and economy (Lubomir Jahnatek) to give preference to the rational use of domestic fuel-energy resources in order to reduce Slovakia's dependence on imports.
Energy resources are being mined in 82 locations that hold 7 percent of the country's total mineral resources. The most significant energy resources in Slovakia are brown coal and lignite - 94 percent. Domestic mining of brown coal and lignite covers 70 percent of the country's consumption, while the rest is imported almost exclusively from the Czech Republic. Of the total amount of recorded resources of brown coal and lignite (1.08 billion tonnes), only 9.8 percent is worth mining from the economic point of view.
The mining of oil and natural gas in Slovakia is being carried out almost exclusively by a company called Nafta, with around 50 percent being mined in the far west of Slovakia, 40 percent in eastern Slovakia and around 10 percent in the Danube Lowlands (south-western Slovakia). Nonetheless, domestic output can cover no more than 0.3 percent of consumption, meaning that imports from Russia cover almost 100 percent of demand.
"The deposits in Slovakia are currently in a state of full extraction using economically and technically demanding means. If new deposits aren't discovered, production of natural gas in Slovakia will obviously come to an end," reads an analysis produced by the Environment Ministry.
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