Boston, MA -- (SBWIRE) -- 08/13/2012 -- We forecast Slovakia's mining industry value to reach US$548mn in 2016, from US$328mn in 2011. Gold mining will be the key driver of this and is the one sector within the mining industry, which holds significant promise. Historically, coal mining has been an important segment of the Slovak mining industry. However, production of coal has been on the decline and Slovakia continues to be heavily dependent on imports of primary fossil fuel resources. Although gold mining activity in Slovakia ceased in 2001, negligible quantities of refined gold are still being produced from the remaining stocks. New exploration activities for gold have been launched, which are attracting foreign investment namely from Cyprus-based EMED Mining and Canadian company Tournigan Gold. Though exploration of new deposits has returned promising results of grades and reserves, the opportunities for growth and investment are modest compared to Slovakia's mining counterparts. Iron ore production is also expected to fall during the forecast period.

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Although the country's mining industry is considerably less mature than those of its neighbours, the sector continues to attract investment from foreign miners. In 2011, Canadian exploration and development firm Global Minerals reported positive results from drilling at its Strieborna silver-copper antimony deposit in the south eastern town of Roznava. With the drilling programme completed, Global Minerals is expected to continue with permitting procedures, which it describes at being at an advanced stage. The company applied for an additional 120 square kilometres (km2) of exploration licences on the back of the results and plans to conduct initial reconnaissance of new targets in late 2012.

London-based Ortac Resources also welcomed positive results from exploration projects in 2012, after its 5,000m drilling programme at its Kremnica gold project found better grades than originally projected. The results will lead to a reclassification of the areas as higher-confidence categories in Ortac's next update. Some of the best results from the mine, which currently has a JORC-compliant resource of 1.1mn ounces of gold equivalent, included a 24m section at 3.65 grams per tonne (g/t) and 11m at 1.85 g/t. The company is hoping to roughly double the mine's existing resource figure.

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