Page:U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY MINERALS YEARBOOK THE MINERAL INDUSTRIES OF THE BALKANS 9401000.pdf/2

 Madencilik San've Tic As (Ber-Ober), was granted a 30-year concession to operate Albania's copper industry on a build-operate-transfer basis. The concession included mines and processing facilities in the Lezhe, Midrite, and Puke Districts. Ber-Ober planned to invest about $24.5 million in Albania's copper industry (European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, 2001a, p. 17).

Between 1994 and 1996, there was a hiatus of steel production at the Elbasan steelworks, which virtually had been abandoned during the 1990s. Some production resumed in 1997, 1998, and 1999, which amounted to 20,533 t, 19,527 t, and 4,813 t, respectively. In 1999, operations and management at Elbasan came under control of Kurum Steel Co. of Turkey under a 20-year lease agreement with the Government of Albania. By the beginning of 2000, production at Elbasan had risen to more than 10,000 metric tons per month from less than 10,000 metric tons per year (t/yr) (European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, 2001, p. 18). In 2000, Kurum's operations at Elbasan were based on two 15-t electric arc furnaces, a third electric arc furnace being converted to a ladle furnace, and one ladle furnace. In addition, Kurum operated a 250,000-t/yr billet caster, a 20,000-t/yr medium sections mill, a 180,000-t/yr bar and 30,000-t/yr wire rod mill, and a 10,000-t/yr merchant bar mill. Total finished carbon steel capacity at Elbasan in 2000 was 240,000 t/yr. Scrap steel raw materials were imported from Turkey and Ukraine. Target markets included Kosovo (Ayers, 2000).

The privatization and sale of the Fushe-Kruje cement plant for $12.5 million in April was among the major events in the industrial minerals sector during the year (European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, 2001a, p. 12, 15). The plant reportedly had production capacity of 150,000 t/yr of cement. The new owner RMC-ECF (a United Kingdom-Lebanese consortium) instituted an investment program to raise the capacity to meet 45% of domestic needs, thereby reducing imports. Recent cement output has not exceeded the 243,000 t produced in 1995, and imports have ranged from 500,000 to 600,000 t/yr. Facility expansion was expected to be completed in 2001. In 1997, the Lebanon-based cement trading and producing concern Seament Holding S.A.L. acquired a 70% stake in the Elbasan Cement Factory and 70% in United Quarries, which operated an adjacent limestone quarry. Facility expansion also was planned at the Elbasan plant, which would include the installation of a new 500,000-t/yr dry process clinker kiln. The project would include the possible participation of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development; financing could range between $15 million and $18 million (European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, 2001a, p. 12, 15).

Albania's energy production was based on coal, hydropower, natural gas, and petroleum production. The output of such mineral fuels as natural gas and petroleum, however, was central to the country's future developmental plans. The country's reported recoverable reserves of petroleum amounted to about 550 million metric tons. The state petroleum- and natural-gas-producing company Albpetrol Ltd. was reorganized in 1999 into three commercial companies—APC (the new official designation of Albpetrol), which was in charge of petroleum production; Servcom Sh.A., which was in charge of handling services; and Armo, which was in charge of refining and marketing (European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, 2001a, p. 17). With the participation of the World Bank and the Government of Italy, Armo was the first to be privatized in 2001. Most of the Albania's petroleum was extracted at Berat and Fier in the south-central and southwestern parts of the country, respectively. The major refineries were at Ballsh, which had capacity of 1 Mt/yr, and at Fier, which had capacity of about one-half that of Ballsh. The Ballsh refinery indicated plans to start the production of lead-free refined gasoline in 2001. Three other refineries with a cumulative capacity of 1 Mt/yr were capable only of primary processing.

Another major activity in the petroleum sector involved a memorandum of understanding that was signed during the year relative to the construction of a trans-Balkan pipeline that would extend from Burgas on the coast of Bulgaria through the city of Skopje in Macedonia to the port of Vlore in Albania. The Burgas Vlore Pipeline was projected to be about 913 kilometers long and have a total cost of $1.13 billion. The pipeline would be built and operated by the U.S.-based consortium Albanian, Macedonian, and Bulgarian Oil Corp. Financing would be based on bank credits from international financial institutions (about $60 million), and the balance, from the sale of company shares. Construction was scheduled to start in 2001 and to be completed in 2005. The pipeline was intended to carry 750,000 barrels per day of petroleum from Russia and other states of the former Soviet Union from the Black Sea to western European markets.

Bosnia and Herzegovina's mineral resources with associated mining and processing facilities remained divided within the country's two administrative zones—the Federation of Bosnian Moslems and Croatians (FBC), which formed one entity (about 51% of Bosnia and Herzegovina), and the Republika Srpska (RS) with a predominantly Serbian population, which formed the other entity (49%). In 2000, the process of reintegrating the two zones continued to show little progress.

The economy of Bosnia and Herzegovina continued to be difficult to gauge owing to the lack of uniform reporting by each side to the Agency for Statistics in Sarajevo. The growth rate of the country's GDP for 1999, which continued to be driven by transfers from abroad and by capital inflows, was revised to 7% from the 10% reported earlier (Central Bank of Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2000, p. 36). A similar GDP growth rate in 2000 was expected but would be contingent on continued financial assistance from the international community, which continued to focus its efforts on the development of a market economy and the reconstruction of Bosnia and Herzegovina's postwar industry and infrastructure (U.S. Agency for International Development, 2000a).

Industrial production in the FBC rose by 8.8% in 2000 compared with that of 1999. The energy sector, which represented about 35% of the value of industrial output (coal production and electric power), accounted for most of this increase. Overall, mining output, which accounted for more than 10% of total industrial production, rose by about 10.4% in 2000 compared with that of 1999. In the FBC, coal was produced in the Tuzla and the Zenica regions with most of the output earmarked for the Kakanj and the Tuzla powerplants. The FBC accounted for about 80% of total resources of brown coal and for about 60% of the lignite in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Bauxite and alumina were produced in the southern and western areas of the FBC, and aluminum was 2.2