The main factors influencing the fate of mining in Romania are: technological base, climate change, labor force, management, and last but not least, corruption and political pressures.

According to statements from several workers at the Oltenia Energy Complex, with few exceptions, many of the equipment used in mines today date back to before 1989. No matter how much you invest in developing and training the workforce, productivity and profitability are limited by the outdated technology and machinery. To better understand the deplorable conditions in mines today, I believe a statement from a miner at the Vulcan mine says it all: “We were better off when we were allowed to work with horses in the mine.”

Lulu, a 53-year-old excavator brigade leader from Tismana, adds, “In the summer, at 40 degrees, when I start excavating, within seconds, the fine dust buries me up to my waist. Occasionally, a colleague comes with a shovel to remove the coal from the cabin. That’s how I’ve been working for over 30 years.”

For decades, millions of Romanians have read, enjoyed, had warmth, and light in their apartments from coal extracted tirelessly by people like Lulu.

Inexplicably, according to many miners, they have lost their job classification as hazardous work over time. Some of them have tried through the courts to regain this classification. It is inconceivable that neighboring villages can take CE Oltenia to court for pollution or noise, and yet the company’s employees, those working in the quarry, do not receive hazardous work bonuses.

The lack of perspective, low salaries, and extremely harsh working conditions have caused fewer and fewer young people to desire a career in mining, despite the lack of alternatives in the area. The average age of miners itself indicates that this industry is on the verge of extinction. Older miners remember the times when their work was respected and rewarded. Nostalgia fills them with regret and disappointment. No job description is respected anymore. The bankrupt institution forces them to work in fragmented teams, to cobble together and improvise to survive another shift. They have accepted to supplement the work that should have been done by other colleagues in the hope of receiving a salary just a little whiter than the coal they extracted from the relentless hill.

The equipment was outdated even when they were young, but back then, they could handle the difficulties with the advantage of youth. Now, neither the equipment nor their physical condition helps them anymore.

While some of them are forced to strike to receive their salaries, others dread the day when they too will leave with empty hands on payday. Out of approximately 12,000 CE Oltenia employees, only a few dozen participate daily in picketing at the Targu Jiu prefecture. Even this reaction is influenced by the miners’ advanced age. The times are long gone when a single union leader gathered over 15,000 souls in the same square.

In 1992, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was signed in Rio de Janeiro. The effort to stabilize greenhouse gases in the atmosphere marked the beginning of the end of the mining industry worldwide. This was followed by the Kyoto Protocol, also signed by Romania, whereby our country committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 8% compared to the 1989 baseline. In 2015, the Paris Agreement was signed, which is based on the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, as well as the principle of equity.

If in the early 2000s coal accounted for approximately 30% of the energy mix, while wind energy represented about 12%, a decade later, the ratio has almost reversed (13.49 VS 26.20). It is evident that under the conditions imposed by the reduction of CO2 emissions, thermal power plants cannot compete in the market with other energy sources. Payment for CO2 certificates or investments, in the absence of subsidies from the state, will lead to price increases. For this reason, many thermal power plants should significantly reduce their activity.

In 2013, the government gave priority in the electricity system to the least profitable thermal power plants, namely CE Oltenia and Mintia. In this way, the government ensured that non-competitive units sell their production before competitive producers. Seven years later, through the liberalization of the market, such measures are no longer a solution.

Based on international agreements, all European countries have negotiated a phased plan for ending mining activities. In Romania, the lack of transparency and planning means that the end of the traditional mining era is characterized by shock and horror. The uncertainty of tomorrow makes aging miners fight more for reducing the retirement age from 55 to 52 than for saving mining. In these turbulent times, three years can make the difference between a few severance payments and a well-deserved pension, which for miners is higher than their salary.

It was already night when I spoke with Croitoru Gheorghe on one of the excavator platforms at Rosiuta. In the spotlight, we see the fine dust falling from the conveyor belt above us quickly covering us. Mr. Gheorghe said, “It’s not the career or hard work that kills me, it’s the uncertainty.”

Politically appointed management has rarely been able to cope with the challenges of this economic sector. However, incompetence has often been the least of the problems. Mining legends speak of managers who facilitated collaboration with certain firms or who “retechnologized” the equipment by dismantling, repainting, and reinstalling parts. After 2012, all investments, albeit quite small compared to the needs, went almost exclusively to thermal power plants, in an attempt to reduce CO2 emissions. From then until now, legends say that in terms of quarries, retechnologization meant at most the purchase of air conditioning units for the central office. Similarly, there are talks of overpriced equipment bought from shell companies, a practice that enriched some and further plunged CE Oltenia into bankruptcy.

There is also talk of a group of interests among gas exploiters who want to convert coal-fired power plants to natural gas. The political group that would support such a strategy would gain traction, given the European Commission’s recommendations that already see gas as the lesser evil. Much has been written in the central and local press about thefts in quarries involving CEO employees, thefts that have gone unpunished. Equally interesting was the phenomenon of sponsoring various football teams. In addition to the amounts allocated for these sponsorships, it is worth noting that often, these teams were directly managed by various union leaders.

I don’t want to believe these legends, but I cannot help but notice that the management of these institutions waited until the eleventh hour to actively seek solutions to resolve or at least improve mining conditions in Romania. If they had done it at the right time, if they hadn’t managed to save it entirely, they might have achieved a partial victory or at least a phased approach worthy of the sacrifice of these generations of miners.

Constantin Cretan is one of the leaders of the miners convicted for the 1999 Costesti Miner’s Riot. That’s how he introduced himself from the moment I met him. It’s not surprising, considering that he still represents the interests of a miners’ union even though he is retired. Even now, in the eleventh hour, he doesn’t give up. He promotes pyrolysis as the saving solution that will prevent mine closures. Together with Adrian Aciu, a member of the team of Romanian inventor Iuliean Hornet, they tried to propose to CE Oltenia a pilot project based on cheap and ecological energy. The initial discussion between the two and Ion Dobritoiu, one of the directors of the Oltenia Energy Complex, got me thinking. I had the feeling that the company representative had given up all hope. My hope was restored when talking to the quarry manager at Rosia and Daniel Burlan, the president of CE Oltenia. The two seem open to the pyrolysis solution proposed by Constantin Cretan and have identified a solution implemented in a Japanese power plant, which seems to reduce CO2 emissions to almost zero. However, Mr. Hornet requested technical information about the extracted coal and a ton of dried lignite for testing from Mr. Burlan, and although he was promised to receive them within a week, he had not received them even after three weeks. State-run businesses remain a hard-to-beat paradigm.

During our meeting, Constantin Cosmin Trufelea, the head of the Rosia quarry, correctly asked whether Hornet’s group of inventors could build a plant for a 330 MW group, which consumes between 8 and 10 thousand tons of coal/24 hours, at what cost, and especially what is the technological self-consumption.

I addressed these questions to Mr. Hornet, and even after three weeks, he failed to give me an answer.

Regardless of the technical solution found to reduce or save CO2 emissions at the level of thermal power plants, the financing remains a problem, whether public or private (EIB, EBRD, WB). Obviously, whatever the technical solution, financing depends on a political agreement. Lack of vision, politicized management, and, last but not least, the burden of CO2 certificates have brought CEO to the brink of bankruptcy.

Another positive example is Director Gheorghiu, who leads the Vulcan mining complex. I met him on the day Constantin Cretan brought a car loaded with bread and canned goods as a sign of solidarity.
Having learned the lesson of closures firsthand, those in the Jiu Valley seem to understand the importance of a phased acceptance of an inevitable moment. Employing the last miner and keeping him safe for 20-25 years could have been a viable strategy if there had been someone to negotiate it. Currently, it sounds more like a romantic movie scenario.

Romania should neither close the mines sooner nor later than other European countries. However, Romania must choose between the burden of CO2 certificates, whose price is exponentially increasing year by year, and finding a solution to reduce CO2 emissions at hydroelectric power plants.

According to Constantin Trufelea, the head of the Rosia quarry, in addition to CO2 certificates, the exploitation also faces the release of working front tasks. To advance according to the plan and work norms, the lands around the quarry need to be expropriated. Here, there are either disputes with individuals when it comes to villages, or disputes with various environmental organizations when it comes to forested areas, for example.

Antonio Guterres, the UN Secretary-General, talks about completely eliminating coal use as the most important measure to manage the climate crisis. He asks governments to cancel all coal-based projects. In other words, he asks them not to engage in new mining and not to finance bankrupt operations. He then asks private companies not to finance such operations, ensuring that they will not have any form of financing. However, he then asks local authorities to make a global effort to transition workers from the field to other sectors.
Given the example of the Great Privatization, when the Romanian state bought off the silence of workers with a few severance payments, just so that the political mafia could sell the bankrupt state-owned companies, freshly “retechnologized” through repainting, I fear that this time, in Romania, thousands of employees will have the same fate if they don’t know how to negotiate the end of their careers.

The fate of mining seems to be sealed. The fate of miners is still in play. A handful of professionals at CEO, however, refuse to give up the fight. They know that diversifying the energy mix by installing photovoltaic panels on waste surfaces, redirecting towards construction materials, briquette factories, selling coal to third parties, or simply ending operations under the same conditions as civilized countries and respecting the UN Secretary-General’s requirement regarding the transition of workers to other sectors, even in the eleventh hour, depends on management and them. The solution has never been in the hands of the political class, which in Romania has been characterized by incompetence and corruption. It’s time for professionals in this field to clearly state their desires, make a plan, and collaborate with international consulting firms to represent their interests both to the Romanian state, often an adversary, and to European partners.

If the people of Gorj prove that despite certain interests or sheer incompetence, they are still seen as an energy basin, they remain an electoral basin as well, they still have a chance in these last negotiation rounds.

After 30 years, can we turn coal mining into an example of good practice in managing national strategic resources, or will we add it to the national disaster, only to look in vain for non-existent culprits in the not-so-distant future?