Minister of Natural Resources, Mining and Spatial Planning Milan Bacevic and Minister of Energy, Development and Environmental Protection Zorana Mihajlovic announced yesterday that the Serbian Oil Industry (NIS) and the Chinese company CMEC are interested in the project of building a thermal power station in Kovin.
After the meeting with Director of NIS Kirill Kravchenko and President of CMEC (China Machinery Engineering Corporation) Zhang Chun, Bacevic said that these two companies are interested in completing the prospecting and preparing project documentation for the construction of two thermal blocks of 350 MW in Kovin.
The Minister pointed out that there are some controversial legal issues related to the issuing of prospecting rights, given that a few years ago a Bulgarian company already did a study on coal reserves in Kovin with the authorisation of the then Ministry of Mining.
He voiced his expectation that the disputable issues will be resolved promptly through cooperation of the Ministry of Natural Resources, Mining and Spatial Planning and the Ministry of Energy Development and Environmental Protection.
Mihajlovic stressed that her Ministry endorses investment in this as well as other energy infrastructure projects in Serbia.
She noted that unless the disputable issues regarding prospecting rights are resolved soon, the construction of the thermal power station in Kovin will not begin for at least a year.
Experts say that the new thermal power station near Kovin could meet one third of Vojvodina’s electricity requirements.
As shown by previous prospecting data, the reserves are estimated at around 276 million tonnes of coal, which is sufficient for the next 35 years of exploitation.
Source Serbia Gov.
