Page:NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE SURVEY 18; CZECHOSLOVAKIA; THE ECONOMY CIA-RDP01-00707R000200110014-8.pdf/14

 APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200110014-8

significant are the reserves in the Kladno region, which accounted for about 9% of the 1971 production. Hard-coal deposits in the Ostrava-Karvina basin are costly to mine but output will continue because the coal is well suited for coking. The coke industry is the principal user of hard coal, consuming about half of the 1971 production. The second largest consumer is the electric power industry followed by general industrial users for onsite production of heat and steam.

Reserves of recoverable brown coal and lignite—used for home heating as well as in power plants—are estimated at 5 to 8 billion metric tons, of which about 1 billion tons are lignite. The largest source is in the North Bohemian basin, which has reserves of 3 to 4 billion metric tons and accounted for 68% of output in 1971. The government estimates that brown coal from this basin can be mined economically for about 50 years. Although the coal is of above-average quality by Eastern European standards, it requires extensive predrying before gasification.

Czechoslovakia ranks second to Poland among the Eastern European Communist countries in the production and supply of hard-coal coke and is among the world's 10 leading producer. Its metallurgical coke (almost nine-tenths of hard-coal coke production) is the highest quality produced in Eastern Europe but is reported to have too high an ash content by Western standards. Coke exports totaled 2.4 million tons in 1972 and are expected to remain at this level indefinitely.

Output of low-temperature brown-coal coke amounted to 0.5 million tons in 1972, all of which is produced at the Czechoslovak-Soviet Friendship Chemical Plant at Zaluzi. This plant also has used the tars and oils derived from the coking process as the raw material for producing synthetic liquid fuels. Production of low-temperature, brown-coal coke which reached its peak about 1960, is now been phased out along with the production of high-cost synthetic liquid fuels in Czechoslovakia.

b. Petroleum and natural gas

With only meager reserves of crude oil and largely depleted reserves of natural gas, Czechoslovakia is almost totally dependent upon imports of oil to meet domestic demands and will become increasingly dependent on imports of natural gas. Proved reserves of crude oil were estimated in 1964 at about 2.5 million metric tons. They are found largely in the Moravian corridor, north of Bratislava. Production in 1972 amounted to about 200,000 metric tons. Although new reserves are being sought, no outstanding results are expected from the intensive exploration which has been underway for more than a decade.

Imports of crude oil—almost entirely from the U.S.S.R.—amounted to 12.6 million metric tons in 1972 or 98% of Czechoslovakia's total supply for the year. Most of the Soviet crude oil enters Czechoslovakia via the Council for Economic Mutual Assistance (CEMA) Friendship Pipeline, which has major terminals in the country at Podunajske Biskupice, near Bratislava, and at Zaluzi. A second pipeline, parallel to the Friendship line, opened in 1969 with a delivery capacity—when all pumping stations are completed—of 8 million tons. The Slovnaft Petrochemical Plant at Podunajske Biskupice—the country's largest and most modern refining complex—is being expanded to process about 10 million metric tons of crude oil in 1975 (up from 7 million tons in 1971) in order to accommodate the oil from the new pipeline. The plant in Zaluzi is the second most important refinery in the country, with a crude oil charge capacity of about 3 million tons per year. The Zaluzi plant, originally built to provide synthetic liquid fuels processes only imported crude oil.

To insure increased supplies of crude oil for future needs, Czechoslovakia granted the U.S.S.R. a long-term credit of US$556 million for the development of the Soviet petroleum industry, in exchange for which Czechoslovakia was to receive above-quota deliveries of crude oil after 1970. By 1975 annual imports of petroleum will increase to 15.5 million metric tons from the U.S.S.R. and to 1.5 million metric tons from other countries. The U.S.S.R., however, has told Czechoslovakia and other CEMA countries to look for other sources to supplement their oil supplies after 1975 because increased Soviet needs and heightened interest in hard currency oil sales will not leave room to satisfy all Eastern Europe's import requirements. Czechoslovakia has concluded contracts for oil from Iran and Iraq. Iran is to supply 20 million tons over 10 to 25 years in repayment for a $260 million loan; Iraq's deliveries will be in partial repayment for the construction of an oil refinery in Iraq to be completed in 1973. No deliveries have yet been made because agreement has not been reached on financing an oil pipeline from the Adriatic through Yugoslavia and Hungary. Czechoslovak exports of petroleum products—all coming from processed imported crude oil—were valued at $25 million in 1972, of which about 86% went to Western countries.

Czechoslovakia's reserves of natural gas were estimated in 1964 at about 15 billion cubic meters.

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APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200110014-8