Bulgaria's Largest Coal Mine Maritsa East May Almost Halve 2009 Planned Investments to 29.6 Mln Euro - Media

The mines will cut all spending, which includes reducing investments to 58 million levs from 100 million levs, if their output is hit by the crisis, Pari reported quoting the mines' executive director Ivan Markov.

If the mines' output falls below 23.75 million tonnes, the investment plan will be downsized and funding allocated only to key operations, Pari quoted Markov as saying. No cuts in the the mines' staff of 7,500 are planned.

Maritsa East Mines plan to extract 25.25 million tonnes of coal next year, Pari reported.

The mines extracted 23,201,600 tonnes of coal through December 14, slightly exceeding the annual plan of 23 million tonnes.

The Maritsa East Mines supplies coal to the 900-megawatt (MW) Maritsa East 3 plant of Italy's Enel and to Bulgaria's largest power plant, Maritsa East 2, which will have a combined installed capacity of 1,576 MW after planned upgrades expected to be wrapped up in early 2010. The mining complex plans to raise its output to 28 million tonnes by 2010.

Bulgaria, which joined the European Union in 2007, relies heavily on its coal-fired power plants after it closed down four of the six reactors of its sole Kozloduy nuclear power plant. To ease EU safety concerns, it shut down the first pair of 440 MW reactors at Kozloduy in 2002 and then a second pair at the end of 2006. At present Kozloduy operates two reactors of 1,000 MW each.