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Hungary Energy Resources
In the late 1980s, Hungary's coal deposits totaled
about 4.5
billion tons and included hard coal (about 15 percent of
the
total), brown coal (30 percent) and lignite (55 percent).
Hungarian coal generally has a low energy content and lies
at
great depths in thin seams, making mining difficult and
costly.
Deep mines in the Mecsek Mountains near Pecs and Komlo
yield
dusty hard coal and coal suitable for coking. Thick layers
of
higher-quality brown coal lie 200 to 300 meters beneath
Tatabanya
and Dorog, while lower-quality brown coal lies under the
Carpathian foothills near Miskolc and in the central
Danube
Plain. The Varpalota Basin in Veszprem County and the
southern
slopes of the Matra Mountains yield lignite. Hungarian
experts
predict that the country's coal reserves will last about
400
years at the production levels attained in the late 1980s.
Hungary's natural-gas and oil deposits are far smaller
than
its coal reserves. The country's largest natural-gas
deposits are
located near Szeged, Hajduszoboszlo, and Miskolc.
Geologists
hoped to discover additional natural-gas deposits but
predicted
that natural-gas reserves would run dry in fifteen to
twenty
years. Small crude-oil deposits lie beneath Szeged, Zala
County,
and other areas. The Zala crude is highly viscous and
difficult
to transport. Wells at Lispeszentadorjam, Lovaszi, and
other
sites yield high-quality oil, but in the late 1980s the
deposits
were almost exhausted. In the late 1970s, drillers struck
oil in
the mid-Danube-Tisza region (the central part of the
country) and
near Sarkeresztur, Endröd, and Ulles. However, geologists
anticipated no new major oil discoveries and expected the
wells
to run dry by the year 2000.
In the 1950s, Hungary began mining uranium near Pecs
with
Soviet assistance. In the late 1980s, estimates of the
actual
size of the country's uranium deposits were unavailable,
but
official sources indicated that Hungary had uranium
reserves
sufficient to supply its domestic needs until about the
year
2020. In the mid-1980s, the Soviet Union guaranteed
Hungary's
future nuclear-fuel needs.
Data as of September 1989
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