Coal industry is dying slowly in Romania

Lawyer Remus Borza became very well-known in the local business world after he managed to perform in the judicial administration of Hidroelectrica and to take out of the insolvency the biggest energy company of the country.

Recently, when he was not allowed to administrate an insolvent power plant and Oltenia Energy Complex, Borza made dark predictions on the Romanian coal industry, saying: “CE Oltenia will go into insolvency in 6 months, while Hunedoara Energy Complex will go bankrupt in one month”.
We will not consider the lawyer Borza’s predictions of the moment, but we will say that Romanian coal industry is on the verge of extinction.

Both of these holdings, first of them being specialized in the extraction of medium calorific power energy coal, and the second being focused on the extraction of coal, are in big financial troubles. Because of the low performance management, as well as because of the lack of interest of the authorities on the coal energy industry. Without having an end consumer with a continued demand and with large dimensions, the coal extracting industry cannot subsist.

The lack of demand caused lowering coal production. It reached around 23 million tons per year. Compared to 1989, the year of the communist regime’s fall, together with the planned production, the production is almost three times lower. The coal demand collapsed right after the Revolution; in 1990n the decline was of more than 20 million tons. In the whole 1989-2015 period, the lowest coal demand registered in 2014 and in 1999. That was both because of the decrease of the general consume of electricity, and because of renewable energies entering on the market.

source: energyworldmag.com