Trepča Mines
| Location | |
|---|---|
| Location | Mitrovica |
| Coordinates | 42°56′21″N 20°55′05″E / 42.93917°N 20.91806°ECoordinates: 42°56′21″N 20°55′05″E / 42.93917°N 20.91806°E |
| Production | |
| Products | |
| History | |
| Opened | 1920 |
| Active | 1925–present |
| Owner | |
| Website | www |
The Trepča Mines (Albanian: Miniera e Trepçës, Serbian: Рудник Трепча / Rudnik Trepča) is a large industrial complex in Kosovo, located in Mitrovica.
With up to 23,000 employees, Trepča was once one of the biggest companies in Yugoslavia. In the 1930s, a British company gained the rights to exploit the Stanterg mine close to Mitrovica. After World War II, under socialist management, the company further expanded.
The enterprise known as Trepča was a conglomerate of 40 mines and factories, located mostly in Kosovo but also in locations in Montenegro. But the heart of its operations, and the source of most of its raw material, is the vast mining complex to the east of Mitrovica in the north of Kosovo, famous since Roman times.
However, with the closure of several mines and factories in the late 1980s and 1990s, the Trepča mining complex in Kosovo now comprises only seven lead and zinc mines, three concentrators, one smelter, and one zinc plant. Mines are categorized according to their geographic location:
This is all that remains of the huge complex that during the 1980s employed 20,000 workers, and accounted for 70% of all Yugoslavia’s mineral wealth.
The mines still have a reserve of 60.5 million tonnes of ore grading 4.96% lead, 3.3% zinc and 74.4 gr/tonne silver, which translates as three million tonnes of lead, two million tonnes of zinc and 4,500 tonnes of silver.
Following Roman times the region was colonized, influenced, or dominated politically by ever-changing populations. Romans, after having occupied Illyrian's territories were amazed with their workmanship skills on extracting and refining different minerals from gold, silver, lead, iron, and copper. Having considered this expertise that was mostly rare at this period of time, the Roman emperor Trajan decided to move one of the Illyrian tribes in Transylvania's mines in order for Illyrians to work there and at the same time teach the other workers the art of mining. Many constructions back in the Roman Empire were constructed including fortresses, wells, drosses, etc. The main fortress was built for the Roman city Municipium Dardanorum which was the capital city of a Roman province in Dardani. With the collapse of the Roman Empire and Slavic migrations, mining activity decreased leading to closure until the late Medieval Era (1000–1492). The long history of the successive influxes of the Byzantine, Bulgarian, Serbian, Albanian and Turkish people helps explain the cultural mixing and the legacies of old grievances which underlie the chaos of the 1990s.
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Wikipedia