Karvina Coal Mines

This article is part of the Global Coal Mine Tracker, a project of Global Energy Monitor.

Download full dataset

Report an error

Sub-articles:

Global coal mines Coal mines in China Coal mines in India Coal mines in the United States Coal mines in Australia Coal mines in Russia Coal mines in Indonesia

Related-articles:

Largest coal mines in the world Coal mine impacts from Covid-19 Environmental issues of coal Coal mining Coal reserves Coal terminals

Karvina Coal Mines (Důl Karviná) is an operating coal mine in Silesian, Czech Republic.

Location

Table 1: Project-level location details

Mine Name	Location	Coordinates (WGS 84)
Karvina Coal Mines	Silesian, Czech Republic	49.8170657794931, 18.5484950103124 (exact)

The map below shows the exact location of the coal mine:

Loading map...

{"type":"SATELLITE","minzoom":false,"maxzoom":false,"types":["ROADMAP","SATELLITE","HYBRID","TERRAIN"],"mappingservice":"googlemaps3","width":"600px","height":"500px","centre":false,"title":"","label":"","icon":"","lines":[],"polygons":[],"circles":[],"rectangles":[],"copycoords":false,"static":false,"visitedicon":"","wmsoverlay":false,"zoom":16,"layers":[],"controls":["pan","zoom","type","scale","streetview","rotate"],"zoomstyle":"DEFAULT","typestyle":"DEFAULT","autoinfowindows":false,"resizable":false,"kmlrezoom":false,"poi":true,"cluster":false,"clustergridsize":60,"clustermaxzoom":20,"clusterzoomonclick":true,"clusteraveragecenter":true,"clusterminsize":2,"imageoverlays":[],"kml":[],"gkml":[],"searchmarkers":"","fullscreen":false,"scrollwheelzoom":false,"locations":[{"text":"","title":"","link":"","lat":49.8170657794931,"lon":18.5484950103124,"icon":"","inlineLabel":"Operating Mine\n"}]}

Project Details

Table 2: Project status

Status	Status Detail	Opening Year	Closing Year
Operating	–	1950	2025 (planned)

Table 3: Operation details

Note: The asterisk (*) signifies that the value is a GEM estimated figure.

Capacity (Mtpa)	Production (Mtpa)	Year of Production	Mine Type	Mining Method	Mine Size (km2)	Mine Depth (m)	Workforce Size
–	1.8	2022	Underground	–	–	494*	3189*

Table 4: Coal resources and destination

Total Reserves (Mt)	Year of Total Reserves Recorded	Total Resources (Mt)	Coalfield	Coal Type	Coal Grade	Primary Consumer/ Destination
84.8	–	–	Ostrava-Karvina Basin	Bituminous	Thermal	Detmarovice power station

Table 5: Ownership and parent company

Owner	Parent Company	Headquarters
OKD AS	PRISKO AS [100.0%]	Czech Republic

Table 6: Historical production (unit: million tonnes per annum)

ROM or Saleable	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022	2023
Saleable	5	4	3	2	2	1	1

Note: The above section was automatically generated and is based on data from the Global Coal Mine Tracker April 2024 release and the September supplement.

Background

The Karvina coal mines are a cluster of underground mine operations owned by Ostravsko-Karvinské Doly (OKD a.s.) in eastern Silesia, Czech Republic.

The mine cluster originally included eight sites—ČSA (Czech Army Mine), Lazy, Darkov, ČSM-North, ČSM-South, Staříč, Chlebovice, and Frenštát—however, only the ČSM mines remain active as of 2023. The Karvina mines are owned by OKD a.s. In 2005, Karbon Invest A.S. bought out the state's share and became the main shareholder. In the very same year, RPG Industries, Ltd. based in Cyprus acquired a majority share in Karbon Invest. RPG Industries, Ltd is owned by a group of international institutional and private investors led by the Czech financier Zdeněk Bakala. Following the bankruptcy process in 2016, part of OKD was transferred to a subsidiary, OKD Nástupnická, which was then bought by the state-owned financial holding company PRISKO under the Czech Ministry of Finance in 2018.

OKD is the only producer of bituminous coal in the Czech Republic. Karvina mines are located within the Ostrava-Karviná coal basin, which in turn is in the southern part of the Upper-Silesian basin. About half of the hard-coal production is used for coke in the iron and steel industry; some hard coal is also used in co-generation plants and for district heating in the eastern parts of the country where it is mined.

All Karvina mines are deep mines and coal is exploited using shafts. Deep mining is carried out under intricate geological conditions in a series of strata reaching many hundreds of meters deep.

OKD's mining activities in Karvina are divided into several mining operations:

Mining Operation 1

Included the now-closed mining sites ČSA in Karvina (operations closed in 2021), Darkov mine (closed in 2021), and Lazy mine (reported closed in 2019, but operations continued until 2020). (OKD's ČSA underground mine site is not to be confused with the active ČSA surface lignite mine owned by Sev.en Energy in the North Bohemian Basin region.)

In September 2020, OKD announced that it would permanently close the Darkov and the ČSA mines at the end of February 2021.

Mining Operation 2

Includes the operating ČSM North and ČSM South, both located in the eastern part of the Karviná coal district.

As of March 2021, only the ČSM mine was left in operation, expected to be closed in 2023. ČSM mine was planned to be closed in 2023, but as of the end of 2022, the company envisaged to continue mining until 2025.

Operation-in-Closure South

This OKD mining operation included the now-closed Staříč and Chlebovice mining sites. Up until their closure in March 2017, they were the only active mines in Ostrava mining district.

Frenštát Mine

A proposed expansion site, Frenštát in the Karvina mine area was mothballed and eventually closed in 2020.

Bankruptcy and Renationalisation

OKD filed for bankruptcy in May 2016. Low international metallurgical/coking prices made OKD’s operations unprofitable. The financially healthy part of OKD was transferred to a subsidiary, OKD Nástupnická, which was then bought by the state-owned financial holding company PRISKO under the Czech Ministry of Finance in 2018. OKD submitted a comprehensive restructuring strategy to the regional court in Ostrava in 2017, announcing plans to cease all mining operations by 2023.

2018 Explosion

In 2018, an explosion in the Karvina coal mine killed 13 people. Methane levels were 4.5 times the allowable level in the OKD mine at the time of the explosion, according to Bohuslav Machek, spokesman for the Czech mining authority.

Production

In 2020, OKD produced 2.2 Mt compared to around 3.6 Mt in 2019 and over 8 Mt in 2015. Production of bituminous coal (assumed to fully represent OKD production as it's the only miner of bituminous coal) in 2022 was reported at 1.8 million tonnes, down by 18% from 2021 levels.

2023 Closure - Reversal

In June 2022, OKD stated that would end operations by the end of 2023, although with a higher production of 1.3 million tonnes. Extension of production beyond 2023 was mentioned as a possibility.

At the end of 2022, the state-owned OKD announced that it wanted to keep mining at the ČSM mine until 2030. It wants to mine an average of 1.1 million tonnes of coal per year, with a maximum of 1.8 million tonnes. The permit is valid until the end of 2026, the management of the company has requested an assessment of the impact of the planned mining on the environment (EIA process) until 2029. After the end of mining, there will be a maximum four-year period of rehabilitation of the mine. However other sources around the same time and later stated that mining should cease already in 2025.

Furthermore, considerations arose as to whether it would be worthwhile to resume mining in the recently shut down mines in Karvinska. The state enterprise DIAMO, which took over the shut down mines, found that resuming of mining at the ČSA and Darkov Mines is possible, but may not be economical or timely.

OKD’s current key customers includes the Detmarovice power station.

• Owner: OKD AS
• Parent Company: PRISKO AS (under the Czech Ministry of Finance)
• Location: Ostrava-Karviná coal basin, Czech Republic
• GPS Coordinates: 49.81706577949316, 18.54849501031246 (ČSM North); 49.8034324472107, 18.555129377084835 (ČSM South)
• Mine Status: Operating (ČSM mine)
• Production: 2.2 million tonnes (2020), 1.8 million tonnes (2022)
• Mineable Reserves: 84.8 million tonnes (34 proven, 50.8 probable) Karviná (OKD1): 19.9 million tonnes (Proven and Probable, 2020)
• Coal Type: Bituminous (Thermal)
• Mine Type: Underground
• Start Year: 1950
• Number of Employees: 8,400

Articles and Resources

Additional data

To access additional data, including an interactive map of world coal mines, a downloadable dataset, and summary data, please visit the Global Coal Mine Tracker on the Global Energy Monitor website.