page_title: Trepča Mines
section_title: Selection Trust
hierarchical_section_title: Trepča Mines / History / 20th-century revival / Selection Trust
caption_attribution_description: English: The contract formed between a British Selection Trust and the Trepça mines.
context_page_description: The Trepça Mines is a large industrial complex in Kosovo, located 9 km northeast of Mitrovica. The mine is located on the southern slopes of the Kopaonik mountain, between the peaks of Crni Vrh and Majdan 1,268 m, and it is Europe's largest lead-zinc and silver ore mine.
  With up to 23,000 employees, Trepça was once one of the biggest companies in Yugoslavia. In the 1930s, a British company gained the rights to exploit the Stari Trg mine close to Mitrovica. After World War II, under socialist management, the company further expanded.
context_section_description: After World War I ended, the newly formed Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (future Yugoslavia), instigated the geological surveys of the medieval ore mines in order to ease the payments of the war credits. Prime minister Nikola Pašić, who became the concessionary of the Stari Trg ore deposits, hired P.Tućan to do the explorations. Tućan reported about the massive ore findings.
  In 1925 a big exploration program was carried out by the British company, Selection Trust, which assessed the huge potential of the ore deposit and acquired the concession in 1926. The concession was obtained by Sir Alfred Chester Beatty, American-born British industrialist who founded the Selection Trust, nicknamed "King of copper", from Rade Pašić, son of Nikola Pašić. Beatty became the first owner and a head of the modern Trepča mines. On 9 September 1927 he launched the Trepča Mines Limited subsidiary in London and the mines were operational under that name until the end of World War II, so the founding act of the later company said: "Founded on 9 December 1927, Broad and son, 1 Great Winchester Street, London ECZ".
  Exploitation of the ore began in 1930 ("First tunnel" in Stari Trg). On 14 August 1930, the flotation in Zvečan (Stan Trg), was opened in the same place as the ancient medieval pit. The name Stan Trg is a misprint by the British administration of the mine, derived from the toponym Stari Trg which in Serbian means old place, or old market. Amazingly, the obvious misprint was not corrected in any later document nor mine plan. The flotation in Zvečan was operational until 31 March 1941. In that period it processed 6 million tons of ore. The ore was transported to the floatation first on the bullock carts, until a 6.5 km (4.0 mi) long industrial cable car transportation was built. A lead smeltery and refinery became operational in Zvečan in 1939.
  During the German occupation of Yugoslavia in World War II, Stari Trg, the centerpiece mine, supplied 40 percent of lead used in the Nazi war industry. After the German-lead Invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941, most of what is today Kosovo was annexed to the Kingdom of Italy but the area around Trepča was part of the German-installed Serbian state. The mines were under the direct German administration, allowing the continued flow of minerals for the production of ammunition and submarine batteries. Output of these products was continued in the period after 1945, in the new, Communist Yugoslavia.
caption: The contract formed between the British Selection Trust and the Trepča mines
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