100 years of mining coal in the Upper Nitra continues
The Upper Nitra has been a mining region for more than a century. To remain so in the future, it is necessary to be thoroughly prepared. In terms of coal mining in the Upper Nitra having a future, an important objective is to ensure the Company’s mining capability in forthcoming years. 
The most challenging and at the same time the most significant investment has been to prepare mining capacity at Field 11 of the Nováky Mining Section, as a natural substitute for stocks which had already been mined out. About 7.2 million metric tons of extractable coal stocks are located here. To access them, the surface of the land to be undermined had to be freed up. This required the handover of 800 meters of the Handlovka river channel, 1,850 meters of the Nitra river channel, a 2,930-meter length of the Koš-Nováky railway line, 880 meters of railway siding to the Nováky Troop Base and further utility and telecommunications networks with a capital expenditure amounting to 36.5 million euros (1.1 billion Slovak crowns).
Work on the elicited investment at the surface began on 1 May 2008. The planned completion of surface structures has been set for July 2009 so that the first metric tons could be mined in October 2009.
New mining capacity addresses Hornonitrianske bane Prievidza’s ability to exploit coal stocks in 2009-2023. The most important benefit of this is to preserve jobs and maintain the standard of living the people of the Upper Nitra region enjoy. Annual extraction of 400,000 – 600,000 metric tons provides working opportunities for 500 employees over a 15-year period and significantly contributes to increasing Slovakia’s energy security.
