Visonta Coal Mine

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

Visonta Coal Mine is an operating coal mine in Visonta, Heves, Hungary.

Location

Table 1: Project-level location details

Mine Name	Location	Coordinates (WGS 84)
Visonta Coal Mine	Visonta, Heves, Hungary	47.747895, 20.055917 (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":47.747895,"lon":20.055917,"icon":"","inlineLabel":"Operating Mine\n"}]}

Project Details

Table 2: Project status

Status	Status Detail	Opening Year	Closing Year
Operating	–	1965	2027

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
–	2	2023	Surface	Open Pit	–	80	#REF!*

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
–	–	2150	–	Lignite	Thermal	Matra power station

Table 5: Ownership and parent company

Owner	Parent Company	Headquarters
Mátrai Erömü Zrt [MÁTRA]	RWE Power [33%]; Magyar Villamos Müvek Zrt [33%]; ENBW Trust [33%]	Germany

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

Note: The asterisk (*) indicates that the value is an estimated figure based on various factors, including the company's forecasted or reported monthly or quarterly production data, etc.

ROM or Saleable	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022	2023
Saleable	–	3.9*	3.4*	3.05*	2.5	2.435*	2*

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

Background

The Visonta and Bükkábrány mines are operated by Mátrai Erömü Zrt (MÁTRA) in Visonta, Heves, Hungary.

The two mines provide coal to the Matra power station. The Visonta mine is adjacent to the Bükkábrány mine. Production is reported in total for MATRA and is assumed to come in equal parts from the two mines.

Surface mining activity of Visonta started in 1964 with opening the mining pit K-I, which was followed by exploiting the Western mine, then the mine K-II. In the Southern mine overburden production was completed at the end of 2020, coal excavation was completed in the first quarter of 2020. As a continuation of the mining field K-II (Eastern), excavation of the mine Eastern-III (K-III) began on 8 September 2015. The coal from the mine K-III is transported to the power plant on a conveyor line of 11.8 km length.

Coal Phase-Out

On July 2020, the company unveiled plans to build a 500 MW gas-fired unit at its facility in Visonta (80 kilometers northeast of Budapest), as well as 440 MW solar parks at its mines. In November 2023, the government of Hungary reportedly stated that the decommissioning of Matra power station would be delayed until the 650 MW gas-fired replacement project was brought online. The gas plant was expected to begin operating in 2027. This was despite Hungary's 2021 commitment to phase out coal by 2025.

According to the CEO of MATRA, the Bükkábrány and Vistonta mines contain enough coal for a hundred years, and the mining machines can operate for another 30 years with continuous modernization.

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.