EU Sustainable Energy Awards – call for entries open!

12.01.2016

Are you working on an innovative and effective energy efficient or renewable energy project? Tell us about it and you could win an EU Sustainable Energy Award at the EU’s Sustainable Energy Week (EUSEW) and become Sustainable Energy Leader!

EUSEW takes place every year in June. It is a month-long series of activities – including conferences (from 13-17 June 2016), local sustainable energy events and the EU Sustainable Energy Awards – dedicated to building a secure energy future for Europe. The Awards aim to promote energy-saving and renewable energy projects and initiatives across Europe.
To be in with a chance of winning, your project must be based in the EU, Iceland, Norway, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Turkey, Israel, Moldova, Switzerland, Faroe Islands or Ukraine.

There are several categories of award: ‘consumers’ – for actions that lead to the behavioral change of individual energy users, ‘public sector’ for exemplary initiatives lead by public and non-profit organizations, ‘businesses’ for forward-thinking businesses, and the ‘citizens’ award for the project which best captures the public imagination.

Projects should be innovative with original features likely to attract EU media, they should have a measurable impact in that they help reduce energy use or bring online renewable energy which will contribute to the EU’s climate and energy goals. They should also have a positive public opinion and be replicable across Europe.

Source: www.ec.europa.eu

Antic: 140 Million EUR To Be Invested in Kolubara This Year

12.01.2016

Aleksandar Antić — Foto: Ministarstvo rudarstva i energetike

Serbian Minister of Energy and Mining Aleksandar Antic announced that a total of 140 million EUR would be invested in an overhaul of the Kolubara mining complex.

Touring the Kolubara strip mines Antic said that he had received confirmation from the company management on his ministry’s stance that more needed to be invested in the mining sector.

“According to the business plan for 2016 we will have EUR140 million for investment and system maintenance, i.e. overhauls in Kolubara. This will be well placed money by the power utility company (EPS) in building up capabilities and strengthening the mining sector,” Antic said.

Antic recalled that in the previous period the thermal sector had helped increase power output, while thermal power plants accounted for 80 percent of the total energy produced for domestic users.

Recently, he said, an average of 70,000 tons of coal a day was shipped off to power plants.

“Those are big quantities, although not the maximum. When the weather settles we will go back to producing the maximum amount of 90,000 tons a day,” he said.

Stand with Chileans! Demand Protection for Chile’s Glaciers

12.01.2016

Chile is home to 82% of the glaciers in South America. These glaciers constitute one of the largest freshwater reserves in the world. They are also vital to the preservation of vulnerable local ecosystems and biodiversity, particularly in times of drought. In a warming planet, protecting all glaciers is essential.

However, Chilean law does not protect the glaciers and has allowed their destruction at a record pace at the hands of several mining projects. In fact, Chilean state-owned CODELCO (the world’s largest copper producer) has destroyed about 342 hectares of glaciers in the Andes in the past decades. Other mining projects from Barrick, Antofagasta Minerals and Anglo American continue to raze glacial areas and remain a direct threat to Chilean water reserves. This must stop, forever.

Source: www.act.greenpeace.org

Summon Your Tesla from Your Phone

12.01.2016

Last Fall, Tesla Version 7.0 software introduced a range of new Autopilot active safety and convenience features to give you more confidence behind the wheel, increase your safety on the road, and make highway driving more enjoyable. The release of Tesla Version 7.1 software continues our improvements to self-driving technology. This release expands Autopilot functionality and introduces the first iteration of Summon.

Using Summon, once you arrive home and exit Model S or Model X, you can prompt it to do the rest: open your garage door, enter your garage, park itself, and shut down. In the morning, you wake up, walk out the front door, and summon your car. It will open the garage door and come to greet you. More broadly, Summon also eliminates the burden of having to squeeze in and out of tight parking spots. During this Beta stage of Summon, we would like customers to become familiar with it on private property. Eventually, your Tesla will be able to drive anywhere across the country to meet you, charging itself along the way. It will sync with your calendar to know exactly when to arrive.

The release of Tesla Version 7.1 software is the next step toward developing fully autonomous driving capabilities and delivering them through over-the-air software updates, keeping our customers at the forefront of driving technology in the years ahead.

Source: www.teslamotors.com

Climate change: Cereal harvests across the world ‘fall by 10% in 50 years’

12.01.2016

Impact of droughts and heatwaves stronger in recent decades, especially in developed countries. Extreme weather has affected global cereal production.

Droughts and heatwaves have reduced cereal harvests by an average of about 10% globally over the past half century, and their impact has become stronger in recent decades especially in developed countries, a study has found.

Climate change is expected to increase the risk of severe drought and extreme heat and now the first detailed analysis of global cereal production has shown that harvests of wheat, maize and rice have suffered greater losses since the 1980s from drought and heat compared to previous decades.

The findings question whether increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are having a discernible “fertilising effect” on crop production that could outweigh the damaging effect on harvests caused by extreme weather events such as droughts and heatwaves exacerbated by global warming.

An analysis of national production of 16 different cereal crops in 177 countries, and a comparison with the effects of about 2,800 weather disasters between 1964 and 2007, has for the first time provided a detailed snapshot of how extreme weather has affected overall cereal production globally, scientists said.

The study found that drought and heatwaves reduced cereal harvests by between 9% and 10% on average in the affected countries. However, the technically advanced arable farms of North America, Europe and Australia were even more strongly affected than the developing world, with average production cuts of about 20%.

“We found that extreme weather disasters such as droughts and heatwaves substantially reduce crop production, and the impacts are worse in richer countries,” said Pedram Rowhani of Sussex University and a co-author of the study.

“The frequency and severity of these extreme weather events is expected to increase in the future. If we do not adapt our agricultural systems to become more resilient to these shocks we can anticipate even larger losses in the future,” Dr Rowhani said.

The analysis, published in the journal Nature, found that losses in average cereal producton caused by more recent droughts had increased in more recent years, with average reductions of about 13.7% compared to losses of about 6.7% prior to the mid-1980s. However, the analysis also showed that cereal production soon bounced back after a drought year.

“We have always known that extreme weather causes crop production losses. But until now we did not know exactly how much global production was lost to such extreme weather events, and how they varied by different regions of the world,” said Navin Ramankutty, professor of global food security and sustainability at the University of British Columbia in Canada, and senior author.

One of the most suprising findings was that advanced countries were apparently more susceptible to crop losses due to droughts and heatwaves compared to less advanced nations. This may reflect differences in scale and the farming methods employed in growing and harvesting cereals, the scientists said.

“Across the breadbaskets of North America, for example, the crops and methods of farming are very uniform across huge areas, so if a drought hits in a way that is damaging to those crops, they will all suffer,” said Corey Lesk of McGill University in Montreal, the study’s first author.

“By contrast, in much of the developing world, the cropping systems are a patchwork of small fields with diverse crops. If a drought hits, some of those crops may be damaged, but others may survive,” Mr Lesk said.

Farmers in wealthier countries rarely depend on harvests directly for food, and typically have dependable access to crop insurance in the event of bad weather, he said.

“So the optimal strategy for them may be to maximize yields rather than minimize the risk of weather-related crop damage.”

Source: www.independent.co.uk

Sensor network can detect exact location and size of ocean pollution

12.01.2016

In the future, when fossil fuels are no longer the leading source of energy around the world and oil platforms aren’t pumping oil from beneath the ocean floor, we won’t have to worry about oil spills, but unfortunately, ocean pollution from spills, leaks and other sources is still a reality.

There are many technologies that have been developed to clean up spills more effectively, but the first hurdle is quick and accurate detection of chemical pollutants in the ocean.

Researchers at the Polytechnic University of Valencia have come up with a way to keep tabs on ocean pollution and keep it from spreading.

They designed an intelligent sensor system that can detect very small quantities of chemical pollution that might come from oil leaks and other contaminants. It can detect the exact location of toxic waste, diesel and other hydrocarbons and how far they have spread through that part of the ocean.

The sensors are embedded in floating devices that can be deployed in any body of water and using clever algorithms move independently to find the perimeters of a pollution event like in an oil spill. The sensors communicate back to the researchers in real time so that a map can be created using their relative positions and what contaminants they’re detecting.

A system like this could make pollution clean up more effective because spills and other events could be detected much earlier before they spread.

“Different chemical pollutants require different techniques for their clean-up. But the single most important factor for minimising the impact and damages to the affected area is how quickly they is detected. This is particularly critical in the case of oil spills, where a full clean-up is virtually impossible if decontamination efforts don’t start immediately,” said Jaime Lloret from the UPV’s Research Institute for Integrated Management of Coastal Areas.

Quick identification and containing of ocean pollution is crucial for the health of ocean organisms and humans too.

Source: www.treehugger.com

Africa Renewable Energy Initiative to build 10,000 MW of renewables in Africa by 2020

12.01.2016

solar-panels- — Photo-ilustration: Pixabay

Solar for sunny Africa

The Africa Renewable Energy Initiative (AREI) aims at enabling the installation of large-scale renewable energy capacity on the African continent by 2020. The African-led plan has just received a big boost with over $10 billion worth of financial backing from various members of the international community at COP21 in Paris. Most of the $10 billion came from the European Union, Sweden and the G7 countries. In particular, Germany will contribute $3.25 billion, France $2.2 billion, Sweden $500 million and Canada $110 million. This will help provide clean power to millions across the continent.

This clean electricity is sorely needed: Approximately 600 million people have no access to electricity in Africa, with the figure expected to rise to 700 million by 2030 without further action, according to a 2015 UNEP report. As a result, many rely on wood or other biomass to cook and heat their homes, leading to hundreds of thousands of deaths each year from indoor air pollution.

United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Executive Director Achim Steiner said, “Africa’s renewable energy revolution will ensure access to clean, reliable and efficient energy, while ensuring we do not add to the greenhouse gas emissions we are gathered here in Paris to reduce. The Africa Renewable Energy Initiative aims to do just that. Such leadership from Africa, and the financial backing from the international community announced today, provides fresh hope that we can tackle the twin challenges of sustainable development and climate change.”

African Development Bank (AfDB) President Akinwumi Ayodeji Adesina said, “Africa is tired of being in the dark. The Lack of electricity has put the brakes on Africa’s industrialization. Through the Africa Renewable Energy Initiative, we can sustain fast economic growth in Africa and on a low carbon development pathway.”

Source: http://www.treehugger.com/

Britain abandons onshore wind just as new technology makes it cheap

11.01.2016

Vestas chief Runevad says UK rules shut out the latest hi-tech turbines, leaving Britain behind as the global wind boom spreads. The world’s biggest producer of wind turbines has accused Britain of obstructing use of new technology that can slash costs, preventing the wind industry from offering one of the cheapest forms of energy without subsidies. Anders Runevad, chief executive of Vestas Wind Systems, said his company’s wind turbines can compete onshore against any other source of energy in the UK without need for state support, but only if the Government sweeps away impediments to a free market. While he stopped short of rebuking the Conservatives for kowtowing to ‘Nimbyism’, the wind industry is angry that ministers are changing the rules in an erratic fashion and imposing guidelines that effectively freeze development of onshore wind. “We can compete in a market-based system in onshore wind and we are happy to take on the challenge, so long as we are able to use our latest technology,” he told the Daily Telegraph.

“The UK has a tip-height restriction of 125 meters and this is cumbersome. Our new generation is well above that,” he said. Vestas is the UK’s market leader in onshore wind. Its latest models top 140 meters, towering over St Paul’s Cathedral. They capture more of the wind current and have bigger rotors that radically change the economics of wind power. “Over the last twenty years costs have come down by 80pc. They have come down by 50pc in the US since 2009,” said Mr Runevad. Half of all new turbines in Sweden are between 170 and 200 meters, while the latest projects in Germany average 165 meters. “Such limits mean the UK is being left behind in international markets,” said a ‘taskforce report’ by Renewable UK. The new technology has complex electronics, feeding ‘smart data’ from sensors back to a central computer system. They have better gear boxes and hi-tech blades that raise yield and lower noise. The industry has learned the art of siting turbines, and controlling turbulence and sheer. Economies of scale have done the rest. This is why average purchase prices for wind power in the US have fallen to the once unthinkable level of 2.35 cents per kilowatt/hour (KWh), according to the US energy Department.

At this level wind competes toe-to-toe with coal or gas, even without a carbon tax, an increasingly likely prospect in the 2020s following the COP21 climate deal in Paris. American Electric Power in Oklahoma tripled its demand for local wind power last year simply because the bids came in so low. “We estimate that onshore wind is either the cheapest or close to being the cheapest source of energy in most regions globally,” said Bank of America in a report last month. A study by Bloomberg New Energy Finance concluded that the global average for the ‘leveled cost of electricity’ (LCOE) for onshore wind fell to $83 per megawatt/hour last year compared to $76-$82 for gas turbine plants in the US, or $85-$93 in Asia, or $103-$118 in Europe. Yet the size of the new wind turbines is precisely the problem in Britain, though the industry says they are less intrusive than more numerous smaller towers. Rural activists vehemently oppose further onshore expansion for a mix of reasons, often to protect the countryside and migrating birds. One application was turned down on fears that blade-noise would startle race-horses. It is understood that up 100 backbench Tory MPs wish to stop development of onshore wind altogether and that is effectively now happening. While there is no fixed height limit, the guidelines for local governments imply a 125 meter cap. This is often beaten down to nearer 100 meters, and the planning obstacles have become a nightmare for the industry.

Amber Rudd, Secretary of Energy and Climate Change, drastically revised policy last year, announcing that support for onshore wind would be cut from April 2016. She said 250 wind farms in the planning phase were unlikely to be built as a result but insisted that Britain was “reaching the limits of what is affordable, and what the public is prepared to accept”. Mr Runevad has other fish to fry in a booming global wind market. The Vestas share price has soared twentyfold since 2012, when the company flirted with bankruptcy after a debt-driven expansion, and faced cu At the time, critics said the wind bubble had played itself out, but the epitaphs were premature. The company’s plant in the Isle of Wight producing blades – shut in the crisis – has opened again. Vestas has raised its revenue guidance for this year to a record €8bn to €8.5bn, with a profit margin (EBITDA) of 9pc to 10pc. It has a mounting backlog of orders for South Korea, China, Brazil, India, Turkey, the US, Finland, and Greece. The world added a record 51 gigawatts (GW) of wind power capacity last year. Almost 40pc of this was in China, where the vast plains of the “three Norths’ have become the epicentre of the global industry – though the US midwest from the Dakotas to Iowa and Texas is no slouch either.

Global capacity is 370 GW, three and a half times Britain’s entire electricity market. A ‘roadmap’ study by the International Energy Agency suggested that China’s wind power capacity could reach 200 GW by 2020, 400 GW by 2030, and 1000 GW by 2050, a staggering sum. “As technology improves, there are no insurmountable barriers to realising these ambitious targets,” it said. t-throat competition from Britain has 8.5 GW of onshore wind capacity and 5 GW of offshore. Wind accounted for 11pc of the country’s electricity last year, reaching a record 17pc in December. The UK still makes up half the world’s offshore wind power, taking advantage of shallow banks that keep costs down. The Government is backing further expansion, expected to reach a total capacity of 11 GW by 2020. Yet this is far more expensive than onshore and requires the sorts of subsidies needed for the nuclear industry, though cost is not the only factor. Wind has merits for energy security and the balance of trade. What seems likely is that the era of onshore wind growth in Britain is coming to an end for political reasons just as the technology comes of age and finally makes sense on a commercial basis. It is a policy paradox.

Britain has 8.5 GW of onshore wind capacity and 5 GW of offshore. Wind accounted for 11pc of the country’s electricity last year, reaching a record 17pc in December. The UK still makes up half the world’s offshore wind power, taking advantage of shallow banks that keep costs down. The Government is backing further expansion, expected to reach a total capacity of 11 GW by 2020. Yet this is far more expensive than onshore and requires the sorts of subsidies needed for the nuclear industry, though cost is not the only factor. Wind has merits for energy security and the balance of trade. What seems likely is that the era of onshore wind growth in Britain is coming to an end for political reasons just as the technology comes of age and finally makes sense on a commercial basis. It is a policy paradox.

Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

China to Halt New Coal Mine Approvals Amid Pollution Fight

05.01.2016

China will stop approving new coal mines for the next three years and continue to trim production capacity as the world’s biggest energy consumer tries to shift away from the fuel as it grapples with pollution. China will suspend the approval of new mines starting in 2016. and will cut coal’s share of its energy consumption to 62.6 percent next year, from 64.4 percent now, Xinhua News Agency reported Tuesday, citing National Energy Administration head Nur Bekri. It’s the first time the government has suspended the approval of new coal mines, according to Deng Shun, an analyst with ICIS China.

The world’s biggest producer of carbon emissions is seeking to boost the use of renewable fuels as smog has blanketed cities from Shanghai to Beijing, forcing factories and schools to close and intensifying pressure on public officials to cut pollution. This month China suspended price adjustments for fuel as a way to curb automobile exhaust and it has pledged to peak carbon emissions around 2030, by which time it aims to derive 20 percent of the energy it uses from clean sources.“This new policy, along with efforts to eliminate inefficient mines, may help to ease the severe domestic oversupply” of coal, Deng said by phone from Guangzhou. “It will take several years to take effect.”

Renewable Boost

The country will also close more than 1,000 coal mines next year, taking out 60 million metric tons of unneeded capacity, according to the Xinhua report. China shuttered a similar number of mines this year, wiping out 70 million tons of production, according to a separate statement from the NEA dated Dec. 29. The country is on track to produce 3.58 billion tons of coal this year, down 0.5 percent from 2014, according to the NEA. China plans to increase wind and solar power capacity by more than 21 percent and have at least 20 gigawatts of new wind power installations and 15 gigawatts of additional photo voltaic capacity next year, according to the NEA statement.

Beijing officials on Friday raised the city’s air pollution alert to orange, the second-highest on the four-grade scale, warning children and the elderly to avoid outdoor activities as limited visibility from the thick smog forced the airport to cancel 227 departures. The chronic air pollution has renewed calls for the government to make better forecasts and act faster to help clear the skies over the city of 21.5 million. Coal demand in China has slid as its economy slows amid a shift toward consumption-led growth and while it intensifies efforts to rein in pollution. China plans to ask companies to replace electricity generated from their own coal-fired plants with renewable energy, the National Development and Reform Commission said last month. Thermal coal at the port of Newcastle in Australia, a global benchmark, dropped to $50.63 a ton in the week ended Dec. 25, the lowest since December 2006, according to data from Global coal. Prices have declined 18 percent this year.

China’s total coal production capacity including under mines construction is estimated at more than 5 billion tons while its coal output for next year will probably reach 3.7 billion tons, leaving more than 20 percent of its capacity idle, according to David Fang, a director with China Coal Transport and Distribution Association in Beijing. “We expect to see less downside pressure on coal prices in view of ongoing production cuts in 2016 and demand recovery, albeit at a slow pace,” said Helen Lau, an analyst with Argonaut Securities (Asia) Ltd. “China is still oversupplied.” The NEA estimates China next year will consume 3.96 billion tons of coal, 550 million tons of oil and 205 billion cubic meters of natural gas, according to the Xinhua report.

Source: www.bloomberg.com

Fresh Climate Data Confirms 2015 Is Unlike Any Other Year in Human History

29.12.2015

Over the past few days, a bevy of climate data has come together to tell a familiar yet shocking story: Humans have profoundly altered the planet’s life-support system, with 2015. increasingly likely to be an exclamation point on recent trends. On Monday, scientists at Britain’s national weather service, the Met Office, said our planet will finish this year more than one degree Celsius warmer than preindustrial levels for the first time. That figure is halfway to the line in the sand that scientists say represents “dangerous” climate change and global leaders have committed to avoid—an ominous milestone.

This year’s global heat wave—about two-tenths of a degree warmer than 2014., a massive leap when averaged over the entire planet—can be blamed most immediately on an exceptionally strong El Niño but wouldn’t exist without decades of heat-trapping emissions from fossil fuel burning. Separate data released on Monday by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration showed the current El Niño, a periodic warming of the tropical Pacific Ocean, has now tied 1997. for the strongest event ever measured, at least on a weekly basis.

“We’ve had similar natural events in the past, yet this is the first time we are set to reach the 1 degree marker and it’s clear that it is human influence driving our modern climate into uncharted territory,” said Stephen Belcher, director of the Met Office’s Hadley Centre in a statement. The Met Office data were quickly confirmed on Twitter by Gavin Schmidt, who leads the research center in charge of NASA’s global temperature dataset, which uses a slightly different methodology:

If that wasn’t enough, the World Meteorological Organization, a division of the United Nations, also confirmed on Monday that global carbon dioxide levels reached a new record high in 2014.—for the 30th consecutive year. The more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the more efficient the planet is at trapping the sun’s heat, and so global temperatures rise. Since our carbon dioxide emissions have a lifespan of a hundred years or so, there’s a significant lag in this process—temperatures will keep rising for decades even if all human emissions ceased today.

That means not only will 2015. end up as the planet’s warmest year in millennia—and probably since the invention of agriculture more than 10,000 years ago—but that there’s a lot more warming that’s already baked into the global climate system. All that extra heat is already changing the planet in complex ways. For example, as of last week, there’s fresh evidence that the Atlantic Ocean’s fundamental circulation system is slowing down. Over the past few years, a notoriously persistent cold patch of ocean has emerged just south of Greenland in the north Atlantic. There have been several theories as to why this is happening, but most involve a slowdown of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, part of the global oceanic “conveyor belt” system of eat and water that helps regulate the Earth’s climate by cooling off the tropics and gently warming polar regions. You wouldn’t necessarily expect persistent record-cold temperatures when the planet overall temperature is at record highs, but that’s exactly what’s happening:

The AMOC is so important that its slowdown has been linked to past episodes of abrupt climate change, like a three-degree Celsius drop in Northern Hemisphere temperatures in less than 20 years about 8,000 years ago, and formed the highly dramatized basis for the planetary chaos featured in The Day After Tomorrow.

Earlier this year, an important study provided further strong evidence that melting ice from Greenland has begun to disrupt and slow down the ocean’s circulation by changing the density of the north Atlantic, with profound consequences: In 2009, East Coast sea levels sharply—and temporarily—jumped by about four inches as water piled up. Stronger winter storms and an interruption of the Atlantic marine food chain also may already be happening. According to a new analysis released last week, scientists used data from a pair of NASA satellites to track climate-related changes in the north Atlantic—the first time ocean currents have been tracked from space.

Over the last decade, the satellites were able to take highly precise measurements of the literal weight of the ocean between Florida and Iceland that corroborated measurements from a network of ocean buoys over the same general place and time. From that information, they were able to calculate that the Atlantic’s circulation is indeed slowing down, a potential climate tipping point that’s been long predicted to occur at some point in the 21st century. Call it one more data point from a rapidly changing planet. Still, despite the blindingly clear data, there’s hope that the tide could—finally—be shifting on climate change. Later this month, world leaders were gathering in Paris and they made agreement to the first-ever global agreement to constrain future emissions trajectories in a meaningful way—possibly enough to avoid the worst-case climate scenario.

Vesna Vukajlović

Source: www.slate.com

Photo: www.slate.com

Serbia, Bosnia mining: Mineco base metals mining and trading in SEE and Russia

28.12.2015

The Balkans has a rich history of mining; mines opened by Romans in the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD still operate in Artana and the Saxons mined extensively across the region (locally, Gross is known as ‘Sase’ in recognition of its origins as a 14th Century mine). Modern, industrialized mining was started by the Austrians and by the 20th Century the copper mines of Bor in Serbia and the Trepca lead complex in what is now Kosovo were among the largest operations of their kind in Europe. However this proud tradition of mining was dramatically interrupted by the breakup of Yugoslavia, the ensuing civil war and international economic sanctions, as Mineco’s Operations Director Dominic Roberts explains: “Unfortunately the ramifications of the civil war in the early 1990s are still felt today in many areas. All of our mines suffered to some extent in the war, particularly Gross and Veliki Majdan.

Gross, for example, stopped production in 1990., it did restart in 1998. but by the time we acquired it in 2005. it was in a terrible state of repair and was running at a fraction of its capacity.” Starting off as a commodity trading company in 2003., Mineco soon expanded its operation into base metal mining and the smelting and refining of metals. It currently has three lead and zinc mines in Bosnia and Serbia – Gross, Rudnik and Veliki Majdan – with a further two projects under development. In Russia, Mineco owns the largest lead refinery in the country. Roberts explains: “There is nothing we take more seriously than our commitment to our key stakeholders, the communities and environments which we serve.” Across its projects Mineco works hard to improve the environmental and social aspects of its operations. Gross mine has become a regional center of best environmental and waste management practice.

A recently completed $2 million investment programme has ensured the tailings dam not only meets local legislative requirements but those of the voluntary Equator Principles set by the IFC & World Bank. It’s worth noting that 99 percent of Mineco’s staff are locals, taking advantage of the region’s specialisms that existed before the war. Roberts says: “Yugoslavia had an enviable reputation for academic excellence. The education and university system produced some very, very good engineers. The issue is that, again due to the breakup and the civil war, a lot of that experience was lost in the consequent diaspora. The engineers that stayed unfortunately lost access to at least a decade of technological advances by the rest of the mining world.”

Mineco is working hard to modernise its operations wherever practical, ensuring they will comply with international best practice and educating its workforce on the technical advancements that have been made around the world. This goes hand in hand with the long-standing recognition within Mineco that its employees are, in fact, its most important natural resource, being ultimately responsible for the group’s growth and successes.

The new projects that Mineco is working on are also in the Balkans, and it’s a part of the world Roberts knows quite well, having worked there firstly in the army, and then using his geology degree and project management skills in the mining industry. And it’s an area that still has enormous potential when it comes to base metal mining. “We are Balkans specialists. It’s our part of the world. We know it and we understand it. There are still opportunities remaining in the Balkans as it is such a heavily mineralized area, however very few of the mineral deposits are of a scale or size that any of the major mining companies would consider. For us, it is the ideal market for a mid-cap, medium-sized company to operate and expand.”

Mineco’s next mine is Olovo in Bosnia, which is scheduled to open in July next year. “Olovo is a very interesting prospect. Unlike our other mines it is not a polymetallic sulphide deposit but rather a rare form of secondary mineralization called cerussite that contains only lead. Olovo is a relatively small mine but its reserves of 1.7 million tonnes are very high grade. Its full operating capacity, in 2017., will be 150,000 tonnes a year,” says Roberts. Olovo is another particular good example of a refurbishing a mine that was abandoned during the war, standing inactive since 1991. But while there is nothing left on the surface, the underground workings remain. “We’ve finished rehabilitating all the underground systems and we’re now in the final permitting stage for the surface infrastructure,” says Roberts. The mine will go on to employ around 200 people and bring substantial direct and indirect revenues to a community with extremely high unemployment.

Another development project is located in Bosilegrad, which is a lead and zinc ore body located in the south east of Serbia. “At Bosilegrad we have over four million tonnes of resources and we’re currently undertaking all of the test work to design the processing plant,” says Roberts. Having already invested in excess of $11 million, production is planned to start in 2017. following a pilot plant next summer, which will be used to confirm the technical specifications of the full project. At approximately 1,400m above sea level, this high altitude mine sits in a very remote community in the mountains between Bulgaria, Serbia and Macedonia. Unofficial unemployment is currently over 50 percent so, as with Olovo, the commissioning of this mine will make a substantial difference to the local community, where we intend to employ about 250 people,” Roberts adds. There are also two exploration projects underway, both in Bosnia.

Roberts says: “The first near Gorazde – an antimony exploration project – and the second in Celebici, near Foca. As mentioned already, from our perspective in the Balkans, we don’t need to commit to greenfield explorations, because there’s such a complex history of mining enabling us to focus on brownfield opportunities. The Gorazde project is an abandoned mine and Celebici is the potential extension of an existing mine.” Roberts adds: “We are continuously conducting due diligence on other potential projects. And to do this we operate an in-house team that we call the PDT – the Project Delivery Team. A handpicked team of geologists and mining engineers who review and develop new projects for Mineco.” The 15-member PDT operates from Belgrade and assists Roberts in evaluating potential new projects and developing those that get the green light. It is another element of Mineco that illustrates its specialism model. “The PDT is another internal center of excellence.

While the team are all locally recruited, in keeping with our employment philosophy, they have all worked internationally at some stage in their career and been exposed to best practice and different forms of mineralisation and mining across the world.” Away from the mining operations Mineco continues its global trading activity. From its London, Zug and Moscow offices, Mineco markets not only its own concentrates, but also the output of a number of other mines in the Balkan region and across Europe and the CIS countries. Through a strategic alliance with the international commodities house, Ocean Partners, Mineco maintains a global trading presence. Completing its vertical integration Mineco owns and operates the Fregat secondary lead smelter. Located in the Moscow region, it recently became the first Russian smelter to achieve registration of its products with the London Metal Exchange. “With the capacity to recycle 170,000 tons of batteries per year and currently producing some 35,000 tons of prime lead metal, it is the largest lead refinery in the whole of Russia – something everyone in Mineco is very proud of,” says Roberts. Summing up, Roberts says: “Mineco is privately owned, with no external debt, a robust balance sheet and we enjoy healthy margins at our producing mines. We are ideally placed to take advantage of the opportunities that will present themselves over the coming couple of years. Investors reinforce their successes, and I am very confident that we will increase annual production by at least 50 percent over the next three years”.

Vesna Vukajlović
Source: www.energy-serbia.eu

1...398399400 401 Page 399 of 401

Newsletter

Calendar of events

2025 March

Events for 31 March

Events for 1 April

Events for 2 April

Events for 3 April

Events for 4 April

Events for 5 April

Events for 6 April

Events for 7 April

Events for 8 April

Events for 9 April

Events for 10 April

Events for 11 April

Events for 12 April

Events for 13 April

Events for 14 April

Events for 15 April

Events for 16 April

Events for 17 April

Events for 18 April

Events for 19 April

Events for 20 April

Events for 21 April

Events for 22 April

Events for 23 April

Events for 24 April

Events for 25 April

Events for 26 April

Events for 27 April

Events for 28 April

Events for 29 April

WRITE US