Pljevlja Coal Mine

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Pljevlja Coal Mine is an operating coal mine in Pljevlja, Northern, Montenegro.

Location

Table 1: Project-level location details

Mine Name	Location	Coordinates (WGS 84)
Pljevlja Coal Mine	Pljevlja, Pljevlja, Northern, Montenegro	43.339467, 19.364433 (exact)

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

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Project Details

Table 2: Project status

Status	Status Detail	Opening Year	Closing Year
Operating	–	1952	–

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
–	1.62	2024	Surface	Open Pit	–	50*	865.8040533*

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
54.9	2021	178	–	Lignite	Thermal	Coal Plant

Table 5: Ownership and parent company

Note: To access more comprehensive data on energy ownership, please visit the Global Energy Ownership Tracker.

Owner	Parent Company	Headquarters
Rudnik Uglja Pljevlja Crna Gora [100.0%]	Elektroprivreda Crne Gore	Montenegro

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

ROM or Saleable	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022	2023	2024	2025
ROM	1.47	1.54	1.56	1.66	1.55	1.72	1.86	1.62	–

Expansion/Extension

Table 7: Project status

* Added capacity of a coal mine refers to the enhancement in the mine's production capabilities beyond its initial production capacity.

Status	Status Detail	Project Type	Project Phase	Added Capacity (Mtpa)*	Start Year
Proposed	Announced	Expansion	–	1.65	–

Note: The above sections were automatically generated and are based on data from the Global Coal Mine Tracker August 2026 release.

Ownership Tree

This ownership tree is part of the Global Energy Ownership Tracker, a project of Global Energy Monitor.

Background

The mine supplies coal to the Pljevlja Power Station which is the only coal-fired power plant in the country.

In the past, the company considered expanding the mine to account for an expansion at the power station (Pljevlja II) but in 2019 the new power plant units were cancelled.

As of October 2024, the project works on the relocation of the flow of the Ćehotina River (River Bed Relocation project) was under way. It was said to be the largest infrastructure project currently active in Montenegro and on whose implementation the stability of the country's energy system depends.

The coal mine had a negative result in the first half of 2024 caused by the extended overhaul of the Pljevlja power station, but reported a positive business result in the 3rd quarter of 2024 despite work on two fronts - coal mining and overburdening and the implementation of planned activities on the new bed of the Ćehotina River. The coal mine expects a challenging period during the downtime of the Pljevlja Power Plant in 2025 due to the planned environmental reconstruction. The Ćehotina Riverbed Relocation Project must be completed in coordination with the ecological reconstruction (of the power plant) project by the end of the next construction season due to limited coal supplies. A loan of 20 million euros was used for the the Ćehotina River project, and the company also has the expropriation of the village of Klaušići costing 3.2 million euros. As of early 2025, according to reporting, there was coal for another year but due to the occurrence of landslides and cracks in half of the Potrlica mine, further mining of would not be impossible. By moving Ćehotina river bed, there will be coal reserves, which will be sufficient until 2048.

In September 2024, the coal mine marked 72 years since the start of operations.

In February 2025, it was reported that the coal mine acquired additional land located next to the Pljevlja - Podgorica main road and the new Ćehotina riverbed. This allows to connect the property into a single entity and expand the potential for the development of the coal mine's future business and tourism complex, which is said to part of Pljevlja coal mine's Recovery Plan.

In 2024, the mine produced 1.62 million tonnes of coal.

Coal Phase-Out Delayed

In 2021, Montenegro has committed to phase out coal only by 2035. In April 2024, the Minister of Energy and Mining of Montenegro Saša Mujović stated that the Pljevlja power plant will operate for at least seven to ten years (i.e. up to 2034).

However in December 2024, the Ministry of Energy of Montenegro prepared and submitted the draft National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP) to the Energy Community Secretariat for a review, now stating 2041 as the planned retirement date. The proposed 2041 deadline is to allow time to install new power plants.

Expansion

The Pljevlja Coal Mine holds concession rights over several lignite deposits in the Pljevlja coal basin beyond the operating Potrlica section, namely Kalušići, Grevo, and Rabitlje. All three were identified in the June 2014 Montenegrin national Strategy for the Development of Energy until 2030 as economically unfeasible to exploit and excluded from energy projections at that time. According to official data from the Montenegrin Ministry of Energy, as of December 31, 2017, the balance reserves of the three deposits were estimated at 15.0 million tonnes for Kalušići, 5.4 million tonnes for Rabitlje, and 2.3 million tonnes for Grevo.

Despite previously being considered economically unfeasible, all three deposits were included in the concession agreement signed in September 2025 between the Government of Montenegro and Rudnik uglja Pljevlja, covering the sites of Potrlica, Kalušići, Grevo, and Rabitlje until 2050. Under the terms of the agreement, Rudnik uglja is obliged to produce a minimum of 1.65 million tonnes of lignite annually across all concession sites, with a concession fee of 4% of the market value of extracted reserves. The village of Kalušići, located adjacent to the Potrlica open-cast section, has been subject to a construction ban since 1990 under the Spatial Plan for the coal mine area, preventing residents from developing their properties for over three decades. According to Rudnik uglja, coal extraction at Kalušići was expected to begin within two to three years of the completion of the Ćehotina river relocation, with land acquisition to precede the start of mining operations.

Ćehotina River Relocation

The Ćehotina River flows through the Pljevlja municipality and historically ran directly through the area of the Potrlica open-cast mine. Since the end of 2008, the river had been redirected through a concrete channel and tunnels to allow coal extraction beneath and along its natural course. As the excavation front at Potrlica advanced, landslides and cracks rendered further extraction from part of the mine increasingly hazardous, leaving available coal stocks sufficient to meet the Pljevlja power station's needs for approximately one more year. Although the need for the relocation had been identified years earlier, the project was delayed by inadequate permits and urban planning conditions dating from 2019. In late 2024, the coal mine issued an international tender for the works valued at €16.2 million excluding VAT; a consortium of Serbian companies (HSV, Opticus Ing, and Kolubara Mionica) was selected in March 2025, and construction officially began on April 25, 2025. The project was funded through the mine's own resources and a loan. By relocating the river back to its original course, the mine gains access to coal reserves sufficient to sustain operations until 2049. By September 2025, approximately 70% of the works had been completed.

The Ćehotina river valley is an Emerald Area candidate — a key habitat for biodiversity conservation in Europe. However, the river had long suffered from heavy metals and other toxic substances originating from the coal mines at Pljevlja, and a peer-reviewed study covering 2011–2018 found water quality in the river to be consistently poor, particularly through the urban zone of Pljevlja. Environmentalists welcomed the return of the river to a near-natural course, though local ecologist Vaso Knežević noted it would not recover to the quality it had 50 years ago.

Just Transition

In March 2025, the Pljevlja Coal Mine presented a just transition plan setting out how the company intended to preserve employment and sustain the local economy of Pljevlja ahead of the planned closure of the Pljevlja power plant in 2041. Given that the mine directly or indirectly supports the livelihoods of a significant share of the town's workforce, the plan envisaged the creation of 12 new business units within the enterprise (construction, road works, asphalt production, geological services, renewable energy, and tourism) that could absorb workers as coal extraction winds down. By October 2025, several units were already operational, including a construction division carrying out municipal waterworks and façade works, and an asphalt plant reactivated after a prolonged period of inactivity.

In July 2025, the Government of Montenegro adopted urban planning and technical conditions for a solar power plant of 81.1 MW peak capacity (62.5 MW grid connection) to be built on the site of the Potrlica open-cast mine, covering 62.6 hectares. The mine also planned a 2.2 MW mini-hydropower plant on the new Ćehotina riverbed.

Resources and articles

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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.