Anina Coal Mine is an underground mine that is now closed. It was one of the largest mines in

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...

. It is located in South-Western Romania, in

Anina Anina (; German: ''Steierdorf''; Hungarian: ''Stájerlakanina'') is a town in the Banat region of Romania, in Caraș-Severin County, with a population of 10,886 in 2000. The town administers one village, Steierdorf (German: ''Steierdorf'', Hung ...

Caraș-Severin County Caraș-Severin () is a county ( județ) of Romania on the border with Serbia. The majority of its territory lies within the historical region of Banat, with a few northeastern villages considered part of Transylvania. The county seat is Reșița ...

in the historical

Banat Banat (, ; hu, Bánság; sr, Банат, Banat) is a geographical and historical region that straddles Central and Eastern Europe and which is currently divided among three countries: the eastern part lies in western Romania (the counties of T ...

region. The mine still has large reserves of

anthracite Anthracite, also known as hard coal, and black coal, is a hard, compact variety of coal that has a submetallic luster. It has the highest carbon content, the fewest impurities, and the highest energy density of all types of coal and is the hig ...

lignite Lignite, often referred to as brown coal, is a soft, brown, combustible, sedimentary rock formed from naturally compressed peat. It has a carbon content around 25–35%, and is considered the lowest rank of coal due to its relatively low heat ...

, brown coal and oil shale amounting to over 1.3 billion tonnes. It was owned by Miniera Banat a state owned company that specialised in the management of coal mines in the Banat region. The mine opened in 1790 making it the longest running mine in Romania until its closure in 2006. Its galleries are hundreds of kilometers in length and reach a depth of making it the deepest mine in Romania and one of the deepest in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

. The mine supplied oil shale to the nearby Crivina Power Station, a 990 MW thermal power station, the first oil shale power station in Romania, that had to be supplied with around 4 million tonnes of oil shale per year. The Anina mine was the site of many fatal

accidents An accident is an unintended, normally unwanted event that was not directly caused by humans. The term ''accident'' implies that nobody should be blamed, but the event may have been caused by unrecognized or unaddressed risks. Most researcher ...

during its history, which claimed over 1,000 lives from its opening in 1790 to its closure in 2006.

Reserves

The Anina mine still has large

, brown coal and oil shale reserves amounting to over 840 million tonnes. The large share of these reserves is represented by oil shale with reserves amounting to 728 million tonnes and represents the largest oil shale reserves in Romania. Other important reserves include 83 million tonnes of

, 26 million tonnes of brown coal and 6 million tonnes

References

{{coord missing, Caraș-Severin County Coal mines in Romania Oil shale mines in Romania