519 Rheinbraun One of the giants of the German mining industry (1), Rheinbraun operates lignite mines in the Rhineland, near Cologne, with an output of more than 100 million tonnes per year, while its Union RB subsidiary in Wesseling operates a crude oil refinery (2).
When, in 1980, 98,400,000 "B" class shares were offered in ERA/Energy Resources of Australia (ie the Australian government's, Peko Wallsend's, and EZ Industries' shares in Ranger uranium), Rheinbraun took up 26,625,000 of them (2).
In 1979, it announced, before the 1979 election, that the South Australian government had promised it would abandon the uranium ban (3).
In autumn 1987, the regional government authorities of North Rhine-Westphalia issued an edict covering the long-term exploitation of lignite deposits in a triangle formed by the cities of Cologne, Dusseldorf and Aachen. Apart from Rheinbraun's existing zones, a third would be addressed, comprising an extension of the Inden mine, and the new Hambach mine, as well as an extension of the Frimmersdorf operations (4).
These aggressive developments would entail the "demolition of a large number of villages and the resettlement of 11,800 people in new housing developments" (4). Both Rheinbraun and the government said they recognised "that this exercise will be a formidable task which must be conducted in a socially fair and acceptable manner" - one which the company was considered well qualified to undertake, since it had "... of course, had considerable experience of such operations, and for previous open-cast developments has organised the movement of over 20,000 people from more than 40 villages into new communities" (4).
Some work on the huge extensions was undertaken over the next eighteen months but, as of mid-1989, further detailed planning was still required (5).
Through its stake in Uranerz, Rheinbraun is involved in uranium mining at Key Lake, another exploration undertaken by its part-owned subsidiary (see Uranerz).
Rheinbraun also holds, together with its parent RWE, a 24% stake in the Bailey No 1 underground coal mine in Pennsylvania, USA, which is "believed to be the most productive underground coal mine in the world" (5).
SOURCE: "The Gulliver File - Mines, people and land: a global battleground" by Roger Moody.
Published in 1992 by Minewatch, 218 Liverpool Road, London Nl ILE, UK, and WISE-Glen Aplin, Po Box 87, Glen Aplin Q 4381, Australia.
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