Danas: Zijin's plan for 126 square kilometres includes the possibility of resettlement

On 24 July 2026, the daily Danas published an analysis of the special purpose spatial plan for the “Čukaru Peki” and “Malka Golaja” mining and metallurgical complex, which was open for early public review until 3 August. The plan covers some 126 square kilometres across the territories of Bor and Zaječar and projects the development of the mining basin through to 2050.

It would tie together the “Čukaru Peki - Lower Zone” mine, the future “Malka Golaja” mine and an entirely new smelter with a capacity of up to 400,000 tonnes of anode and cathode copper a year, with space reserved for a further 450,000 tonnes. The plan also leaves open the possibility of resettling residents from certain zones, and of relocating the Bor-Zaječar state road and part of the power infrastructure if underground mining threatens their safety.

Zijin told Danas that this is an initial planning phase, not a final investment decision or a permit for individual projects, and that technical parameters, investment scale and timelines are not yet defined. On resettlement, the company says no data and no decisions exist, and therefore no compensation model either. The final location of the new smelter is undetermined; the document says only that it is "potentially on the territory of the city of Bor".

Zaječar activist Martin Stanojević warns in the piece that citizens are being asked to comment on a plan whose key elements its own drafters have not settled: the smelter's location, the subsidence and collapse zone that determines who gets moved out, the water balance, and the financial guarantees for remediation. No strategic environmental assessment is produced at this stage, as the document itself states, and in the zone of direct impact new construction is banned, and only maintenance of existing buildings is allowed "until resettlement".

Miloš Popović, senior research associate at the Faculty of Science in Niš and an Eko Istok activist, points out that exploration is already moving south towards Lenovac and Lasovo, and that the mine plans to draw over 800 litres of water per second from the Crni Timok, half the river's entire summer flow. The lower zone of Čukaru Peki would be mined by a method that collapses the surface into a crater, with tailings ending up in the Kriveljska river valley, by the village of Oštrelj, home to nearly 700 people.

Vojislav Stojsavljević's full article was published in Danas (in Serbian).