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Yugoslavia Energy and Mineral Resources
Energy policy in the late 1980s was aimed at reducing
dependence on foreign sources and utilizing domestic power
resources more fully. For conventional power generation, the
Yugoslav power industries began replacing heavy oil with coal in
thermoelectric generators and relying more heavily on
hydroelectric stations. Development of nuclear power generation
was limited by public resistance (especially after the Chernobyl
disaster in 1986) and by lack of domestic technology and nuclear
fuel.
The southern portions of Yugoslavia were richer in lignite
and hydroelectric potential, while the more prosperous northern
areas produced all the country's crude petroleum and one-third of
total electrical power. Yugoslavia has always had an overall
shortage of energy resources: natural gas and oil reserves were
meager, low-caloric lignite was by far the predominant type of
coal, and other fuel deposits remained unexploited because of
insufficient funding for exploration and equipment. In 1990,
because of poor funding support and conflicting regional
interests, Yugoslavia still lacked a complete nationwide electric
transmission grid. Industry regularly experienced power shortages
caused by weaknesses in the transmission system and lack of
generating capacity. Periodic emergency measures to restrict
energy consumption included limits on use of private cars and
stricter speed limits. In the late 1980s, the Croatian power
industry was near bankruptcy, and the Yugoslav oil industry faced
collapse.
In 1989 Yugoslav wells supplied only 26 percent of domestic
raw petroleum requirements; the main foreign suppliers were the
Soviet Union, Iraq, and Libya. Significant amounts of domestic
petroleum and natural gas came only from wells in the sedimentary
rock of the Pannonian Basin. Lack of proper equipment and up-to-
date technology limited exploration of several large deposits
believed to exist in that area. In 1968 extensive natural gas
prospecting and some oil prospecting began in the Adriatic Sea,
assisted by heavy foreign investment. In 1988 Southern Adriatic I
near Ulcinj (Montenegro) became the first offshore oil well to go
into operation with support from a domestic interrepublican
investment group. Despite declining foreign participation and
lower international oil prices, Adriatic exploration continued in
1990 because of Yugoslavia's strong need to improve the balance
of domestic versus imported fuel supply. The Adria pipeline was
the major supply line of petroleum from the Adriatic entry port
at Krk Island to industries and refineries in the interior of the
country.
Production of natural gas increased significantly in the
1980s with the opening of the Molve field (Croatia) in 1985 and
three wells in the northern Adriatic in 1989. Molve increased
national production by one-third, yielding one billion cubic
meters annually. Yugoslavia remained heavily dependent on the
Soviet Union for natural gas in 1990, although Adriatic
exploration continued. In 1985 construction began on a pipeline
connecting the Soviet Union with Macedonia; in 1986 the Yugoslav
natural gas distribution system included about 2,880 kilometers
of pipeline.
Coal was the most important fuel for Yugoslav energy
generation in the late twentieth century; 75 percent of domestic
coal went to thermoelectric plants. Total coal reserves were
estimated at 22 billion tons in 1985, and total production
remained around 70 million tons yearly in the late 1980s. In 1990
hard coal production was less than in the 1960s, but production
of lower-quality brown coal and lignite (soft coal), remained
steady through the 1980s. The center of the lignite industry was
the Tito Mines complex at Tuzla, in the Pannonian Basin.
Yugoslavia's only deposits of high-grade bituminous coal were in
relatively small reserves in Istria (northwest Croatia), eastern
Serbia, and Bosnia. Potential new reserves had been located but
not yet evaluated in 1990.
In spite of the importance of coal to the Yugoslav economy,
inefficiency in managing power resources led to significant waste
in the coal industry. Shaft mine output increased throughout the
1980s, but at the expense of decreased productivity rates, wasted
resources, abnormal wear on equipment, and unusually high
production costs. Surface mining of Yugoslavia's lignite reserves
also was mismanaged. Although Kosovo contained the largest
lignite field in Europe and 50 percent of Yugoslavia's coal
reserves, inefficiencies in energy planning limited Kosovo's
contribution to 15 percent of the country's actual coal supply in
1988.
The potential for developing hydroelectric power in
Yugoslavia in the 1980s was greater than for development of
fossil fuels. From 1956 through the 1980s, production of
electricity from hydroelectric sources exceeded that from all
other sources. Despite heavy investment in this area, however,
only an estimated 20 percent of Yugoslavia's hydroelectric
potential was in use in 1990. Many obstacles hindered access to
resources in mountainous watersheds of the Drina, Bosna, and
Neretva rivers
(see
fig. 6). Costs were very high for building
power stations in difficult terrain and for transmitting power
across hundreds of miles of mountains to consumers. In the 1980s,
the largest provider of hydroelectric power to Yugoslavia was the
joint Yugoslav-Romanian Iron Gate Project in the Djerdap Gorge on
the Danube River.
Krsko, Yugoslavia's first nuclear power station, was designed
by the United States firm Westinghouse; it began transmitting
power from its site in eastern Slovenia in 1982. In 1987 Krsko
produced about 5 percent of Yugoslav domestic electric power.
After its construction, however, further nuclear development
became problematic. Although Yugoslav uranium deposits in eastern
Serbia were believed sufficient to fuel additional nuclear
reactors, policymakers feared the results of Yugoslav dependence
on foreign nuclear fuel suppliers. In 1990 the Krsko plant still
imported all its nuclear fuel from the United States. At the
other end of the generation process, Yugoslavia had no good sites
for nuclear waste disposal.
In 1986 Yugoslavia began looking for foreign credits to build
four new nuclear plants. However, environmental and political
factors and the prospects of increasing the foreign debt made
this an unpopular program by the late 1980s. Policymakers feared
that new plants would divide the country into western and eastern
nuclear spheres, exacerbating Serbian-Slovenian economic and
political disputes. The Krsko plant and a projected plant in
Prevlaka were in western Yugoslavia and financed by Western
partners; three other projected plants in Serbia, Macedonia, and
Montenegro were to be financed by the Soviet Union. Hot
interregional disputes postponed building of these plants into
the 1990s and weakened national resolve to continue a program of
nuclear power generation.
Yugoslavia was endowed with a wide variety of ferrous and
non-ferrous ores. About 80 percent of the country's iron ore
reserves were located at Vares and Ljubija in Bosnia and
Hercegovina, with other major deposits in Slovenia and Macedonia.
A poor transportation network and lack of suitable fuels near the
highest grade deposits hindered exploitation of those ores.
Yugoslavia could probably have been self-supporting in iron ore
if resources were fully exploited, but in 1990 the country was
still a net importer of iron ore, scrap, and semifinished steel.
Yugoslavia also was rich in several nonferrous metals.
Bosnia-Hercegovina produced 56 percent of the country's bauxite,
while Kosovo's Trepca Combine, the largest lead-and-zinc center
in the country, enabled that province to produce 47 percent of
Yugoslavia's lead and zinc ores. Kosovo also supplied a
substantial part of Yugoslav chrome. The Bor and Majdanpek areas
of Serbia were the only copper sources in the country, and Serbia
also provided most of Yugoslavia's antimony. Macedonia
contributed chrome, manganese, and uranium, and the most
productive mercury mines in Europe were located at Idrija in the
Julian Alps of Slovenia.
Many of Yugoslavia's mineral deposits were in inaccessible
areas remote from sources of energy. Massive capital investments
were needed for the roads and communications necessary to reach
many untapped reserves. On the other hand, Yugoslav industry
often lacked the capacity to absorb available mineral resources,
and much raw and semifinished material was exported in return for
manufactured goods.
Data as of December 1990
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