page_title: Brown coal mining limits in North Bohemia
section_title: Czech Coal purchases its own power plant with question marks over its coal supply
hierarchical_section_title: Brown coal mining limits in North Bohemia / Czech Coal purchases its own power plant with question marks over its coal supply
caption_attribution_description: English: Coal-fired power plant in Chvaletice, Czech Republic Deutsch: Kohlekraftwerk Chvaletice in Tschechien
context_page_description: Territorial limits to the mining of brown coal in North Bohemia are legally binding according to Resolution No. 444 passed in 1991 by the government of the Czech Republic, on the basis of a proposal tabled by the then Minister for the Environment, Ivan Dejmal. The limits define the areas that can be mined, as well as areas where coal reserves have been written off. There is now the prospect, however, that the limits will be breached and sanction given to increase coal mining further, which would involve the demolition of more communities within the currently demarcated limits, e.g. Horní Jiřetín and Černice.
  The limits concern these mining localities: Czechoslovak Army Mine, Jan Šverma Mine, Vršany Mine, Bílina Mine and Nástup - Tušimice Mine.
context_section_description: The controversial owner of Czech Coal, Pavel Tykač, sold part of the group, Litvínovská uhelná (which operates the Czechoslovak Army Mine bordering the towns of Horní Jiřetín and Černice), to his two Czech Coal colleagues Jan Dienstl and Tomáš Fohler in March 2013. Tykač retained ownership of the rest of the group. The deal went through at the same time Czech Coal entered into a long expected historic contract with the half state-owned energy supplier ČEZ, which guaranteed Czech Coal sales of coal for the next 50 years at a fixed price. Czech media immediately began referring to Dienstl and Fohler as the Czech Republic's two newest “coal barons”. 
  
  Shortly before this deal was made, ČEZ and Czech Coal signed the “energy deal of the century”  when the former sold the Chvaletice power plant to Litvínovská uhelná for CZK 4.12 billion, which in turn follows another deal for the supply of coal by Czech Coal to Počerady, which is the most powerful power plant in the ČEZ portfolio. In August 2013, Litvínovská uhelná was officially renamed Severní energetická. 
  The Chvaletice deal immediately raised fears among other market players, such as that the sale of the plant to a company managed by Czech Coal executives would lead to all available coal disappearing from the Czech market. Moreover, Czech Coal also faced accusations from the Association of Heating Plants that it had intentionally  provided government representatives, including the Ministry of Trade and Industry, with undervalued coal reserves and which were subsequently used in strategic government documents. “Our earlier suspicion that Czech Coal had purposefully underestimated opportunities for the mining of coal in order to push consumers to the wall and increase the price has been fully confirmed,” said Association of Heating Plants chairman and former premier Mirek Topolanek.
  In December 2012, Dienstl stated in relation to the potential purchase of both Počerady and Chvaletice: “Počerady is our priority, but we can’t mine enough coal to supply both plants. Officially, Czech Coal had until then reckoned on a fall in mining at its Czechoslovak Army Mine to two million tons a year. Such an amount of coal, were it to be used solely for the Chvaletice power plant, would be difficult to justify the agreed purchase price paid by Czech Coal. Moreover, Czech Coal at the end of 2012 asserted that it had contractually guaranteed sales for all the coal it could mine in the Czechoslovak Army Mine.
  More recently, Dienstl said that coal supplies for Chvaletice would come from the Czechoslovak Army Mine, adding: "Figuratively speaking, we were looking for coal all last week. In certain parts of the mine there is coal equivalent to more than 400 million gigajoules that we are able to extract. So far, it hasn’t been possible to extract it because it would be economically inefficient. But when we now have our own power plant, then efficiency is much more easily found." According to Mlada fronta dnes, it means that Czech Coal did indeed willfully and intentionally mislead not only the heating plants, but also government administration, including the Ministry of Trade and Industry during the preparation of the State Energy Plan and other strategic state documents.
  Moreover, supplying Chvaletice with adequate amounts of coal raises the question whether those supplies would have to come from beyond the mining limits at the Czechoslovak Army Mine. Part of the coal needed for Chvaletice would come from another of Czech Coal's holdings, Vršanská uhelná, while the rest would come from the side slopes of the Czechoslovak Army Mine that to date had not been economic to mine. A mining permit for one of the eastern slopes of the mine was sought with the mining administration in early 2013.
  
  At the start of March 2013 Litvínovská uhelná filed a request with the same administration for the repeal of a ban on deep mining in two of the “protective pillars” that safeguard the adjacent slopes of the Krušný (Ore) Mountains from slippage. The listed building of Jezeří Chateau stands on them, while Horní J
caption: Chvaletice power plant
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