Mining

A new draft mining law has been passed by Turkey's Parliamentary Commission on Industry, Trade, Energy, Natural Resources and Information Technology, in response to a series of deadly accidents that hit headlines last year.

The mining company responsible for the operation of the disaster-struck mine in the Aegean coal capital of Soma, where 301 workers lost their lives in Turkey's worst mining accident last May, has obtained authorization to build a new plant in the northern province of Amasya, daily Cumhuriyet has reported.

2014 was a “deadly” year for Turkey and for the country’s workers. Fatal mining and construction accidents left hundreds of workers dead and big scars for their families as well as in our memories.

Coal mining complex workers treated for poisoning

BELGRADE -- Nine workers of the Kolubara mining basin have been injured when coal dust caught on fire in Field D of the strip mine southwest of Belgrade.

Industrial production rose, in the first ten months of this year, compared to the same period in 2013 by 7% in unadjusted terms and by 8% in terms adjusted to the number of working days and seasonality, show the data released on Friday by the National Statistics Institute /INS/.

Main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu said safe rooms should be compulsory in mines and subcontracting must end in Turkey's mining sector, as he attended the Dec. 5 funerals of five miners who died after being trapped in a coal mine in the Central Anatolian town of Ermenek.

An expert report prepared for the probe into the recent mine disaster in the Turkish town of Ermenek has found the Energy Ministry’s General Directorate of Mining (MİGEM) guilty of indirectly causing the accident, as it allowed the mine to be reopened although detected deficiencies were not remedied after an inspection in August.

BELGRADE - Serbian Minister of Energy and Mining Aleksandar Antic said Tuesday that in the following few months, Serbia could make a decision to start the construction of a Thermal Power Plant (TPP) Stavalj and expand and build new mines in the complex, which should be implemented in cooperation with partners from the Czech Republic.

Cengiz Construction’s dreams of extracting copper in the eastern Black Sea has been halted by the law, just days after a court similarly prevented Kolin İnşaat, a fellow partner in the winning consortium for the third Istanbul bridge, from building a coal plant on an olive plantation on the Aegean.

BELGRADE - Serbia should soon get a new law on mining and geological exploration, which will boost the security of investing in the sector and contribute to more efficient and streamlined mineral resource explorations, Assistant Minister of Mining and Energy Sinisa Tanackovic said on Monday.