Bogdan Tudorache

A final sentence of the Alba Iulia Court of Appeal opens the possibility of insolvency of the Hunedoara Energy Complex (CEH). The complex was insolvent in 2016, this being the only solution to avoid bankruptcy. The CEH will be divided and the Mintia power plant will be subordinated to the Hunedoara County Council, according to an ordinance that has already been adopted by the Senate. Thus, CEH will be divided into two new legal entities, the first being the Mintia power plant, while the second will group the coal mines in the Jiu Valley and the Paroseni power plant – under a new name – the Jiu Valley Energy Complex.

Last year, the European Commission informed that the energy producer received from Romania an illegal state aid, worth about 60 million euro, through four loans financed from public funds, which the state now has to recover. CEH estimates losses of 397.09 million lei this year, thus entering the seventh consecutive year of negative results.

In September, the miners obtained not only the increase of certain extra-salary bonuses, but also new benefits that they have not get until now.

The president of the “Muntele” Syndicate, Darius Câmpean, told Radio Romania that the bonuses for the Craft Day were introduced – the Energeticians will take the first one on the Day of the Energetician, and the miners will take the first on the occasion of the Miner’s Day. “Also, we introduced those partial settlements of holiday tickets. These are two elements that we did not have in the last collective work contracts and are now in addition to it.

There are some increases: the ranking coefficients, which we updated, the increase in fidelity bonus, where we intervened with a session of changes, in the sense of increasing it, the heating aid, which increased, the level of meal vouchers, which, again, has registered an increase,” said Campean. All these increases took place against the background of an uncertain future of the company, which is still in the top of debtors to the state budget.

In addition, the quantity of coal extracted in the Jiu Valley amounts to 1,400 tonnes per day, insufficient for the operation of the two thermal power stations in the county, which burn during the winter also imported coal.