for the needs of
industry. Through the limitation that it places on electric power
development, the fuel shortage--in the absence of a large hydroelectric
power potential--may become a major factor inhibiting industrial growth.
In 1968 the proportion of petroleum and natural gas in the fuel balance
was somewhat more than 42 percent; it is planned to rise to about 60
percent in 1975 and to at least 65 percent in 1980. Virtually all
petroleum and natural gas must be imported.

Coal and Lignite

Reserves of anthracite and bituminous coal are insignificant; their
production amounts to less than 2 percent of the annual coal output.
Brown coal deposits that can be mined economically are nearing
exhaustion, and brown coal production declined by about one-third in the
1960-70 period. Low-calorie lignite remains the major fuel base for
thermoelectric power stations. Reserves of this inferior fuel are large.

Coal deposits are scattered in about twenty small deposits. Because of
difficult geological conditions, however, only a few of the deposits are
exploited. Anthracite is mined in the Svoge basin, located in the Iskur
gorge area of the Stara Planina, north of Sofia. Bituminous coal is
mined in the same mountain range, in the area between Gabrovo and
Sliven. The deposit at Sliven was reported to contain a very small
quantity of coking-grade coal--a quantity far below the needs of the
iron and steel industry. In addition to large annual imports of coking
coal, Bulgaria has also imported from 250,000 to 465,000 tons of coke
per year.

The main source of brown coal for many years has been the Pernik basin
in the upper Struma valley, about nineteen miles southwest of Sofia. In
the 1971-75 period brown coal mining is to be substantially expanded at
the Bobov Dol deposit in the Rila mountain range, south of the Pernik
basin. The Babino mine in the Bobov Dol coalfield is scheduled to become
the largest underground coal mine in the Balkans. Reserves in this
deposit, however, are equivalent to only about five to six years'
production at the 1970 rate of brown coal output.

Lignite is mined mainly in the Maritsa basin, near Dimitrovgrad in the
Thracian Plain, and in the Sofia Basin. The Maritsa basin, particularly
the area known as Maritsa-Iztok (Maritsa-East), has become the basic
source of coal production, contributing about 50 percent of the
country's output. Aside from planned new mine construction, the
Maritsa-Iztok complex