Mineral Resources in 2019


Dear readers, it is a great pleasure to present to you this year’s Mineral Resources Bulletin, published by the Ministry of Infrastructure, which is responsible for mining and mineral resources in Slovenia.

The Ministry of Infrastructure regulates the field of mineral resources on a national level through a program, which is carried out by the Geological Survey of Slovenia, consisting of three main activities: expertise, informational infrastructure and mineral deposit research. According to the Mining Act the Geological Survey of Slovenia (as a public research institution) has been entrusted with the tasks of Public Mining Service and geological expert services. It is also engaged within EU research projects and coordinates policies and legislation on EU level.

Slovenia is also involved in projects within the GeoERA program, the purpose of which is to combine data and knowledge regarding mineral resources, geo-energy and water on EU level using a common information system. Slovenia is, with the web application ‘Mining Registry Book’, one of the leading European countries in this field and with it also transfers good practises to other West Balkan countries.

Slovenian mining is currently facing some critical challenges. Two of them are securing appropriate mineral supply network (taking into consideration the requirements set by the ‘Regulation on the water management plan for the Danube river and the Adriatic Sea’) and ensuring continual supply of mineral resources (keeping in mind that more than half of national mineral concessions end in the year 2021).

In order to ensure continual supply of mineral resources to the market beyond 2021, the ministry is encouraging concessionaries to meet all criteria for the extension of mining rights and concessions, or to obtain new concessions.

New amendments of Mining Act, which is in the process of preparation, will presumably also contain corrections and modification of acts concerning the collection of geo-information, updating records, integrating mineral areas into spatial acts, restricting illegal mining activities and remediation of illegal and abandoned mine works.

Through the introduction of the above-stated measures, our aim is to ensure that the EU policies and legislation are suitably implemented and national regulations appropriately adjusted for transferring the new acquired knowledge into practice.

We would like to invite you to keep participating in creating the Bulletin and we wish you a pleasant reading.

Ljubljana, October 2019

Roman Čerenak, M.Sc.
Secretary
Ministry of Infrastructure


Bilten (PDF, 10MB)