September 12 (SeeNews) - Bosnian state-owned brown coal mine Rudnik Mrkog Uglja (RMU) Breza plans to raise its 2007 output to 320,000 tonnes of coal, from 220,000 tonnes it dug last year, on the back of investments in upgrades, Bosnian media reported on Wednesday.
The mine excavated 270,000 tonnes of coal only in the first eight months of this year, daily newspaper Dnevni Avaz reported.
“The good production results are a result of the installation of new capacities… We have also modernised the main transportation gallery and thus solved the problem with the transport of people and material,” Avaz quoted Breza’s director, Jakub Dinarevic, as saying.
Company officials were unavailable for comment.
Last year, RMU Breza officials said the mine expected to invest up to 18 million marka ($12.7 million/9.2 million euro) in upgrades to raise its annual output more than twice to 450,000 tonnes of coal by 2009.
Of those, 15 million marka would come from a loan deal with Bosnian bank IKB and some three million marka will be a subsidy from the government of Bosnia’s Muslim-Croat Federation, where Breza is based.
The Federation is one of the two autonomous parts forming war-divided Bosnia. The other is the Serb Republic.
Also last year, RMU Breza signed a letter of intent with the government for the merger of the mine with the country's biggest power utility, state-owned Elektroprivreda BiH. The Federation devised in 2004 a reform plan for its energy sector, aiming to raise output by combining coal mines and adjacent power plants into joint structures.
There are 11 coalmines in the Federation, of which 10 are wholly or partly owned by the state, including idled Mostar mine. Privately held Kamengrad mine is also operating.
The active state-owned mines in Bosnia produce together six million tonnes of coal annually. Coal-fired power plants generate two-thirds of the electricity in the Federation, while the remainder comes from hydropower plants.
RMU Breza is 100%-owned by the state. The mine is located 30 kilometres northwest of Bosnian capital Sarajevo.
(1 euro=1.95583 Bosnian marka)