The south-western of two surviving shaft structures at the closed Baňa Nováky lignite mine, Slovakia’s last underground coal mine.
This record documents the south-western of two proximate shaft structures within the Baňa Nováky lignite mine complex at Nováky, Prievidza District. It lies approximately seventy metres from the north-eastern shaft structure recorded separately. Baňa Nováky was the principal lignite mine in the Horná Nitra coalfield and Slovakia’s largest and ultimately last underground coal operation.
Prospecting began in 1938 and the first coal was raised in June 1940. The mine expanded substantially after nationalisation, developing multiple colliery sections and later operating under Hornonitrianske bane Prievidza. Mining ceased on 20 December 2023, when the final tonne was extracted after total output of approximately 93 million tonnes.
The specific formal name of this shaft structure has not yet been confirmed.
The Nováky lignite deposit was identified around 1900 when coal outcrops appeared on the road between Nováky and Zemianske Kostoľany. After an early survey by Šalgótarjáni kamenouhoľná spoločnosť in 1906 and systematic borehole prospecting from 1938, Handlovské uhoľné bane obtained the mining concession in March 1940. The first coal was extracted on 14 June 1940 via the Rudolf úpadnica at Pustý vrch.
Output in the early years was constrained by wartime conditions and underground flooding; only 100,510 tonnes were produced in the period 1940 to 1944. Postwar nationalisation in 1946 transferred the colliery to Slovenské uhoľné bane in Prievidza. Major investment followed in the construction of the central Baňa Mier section and subsequently Baňa Lehota, opened in 1951, in which year the enterprise also became independent as Novácke uhoľné bane.
Over subsequent decades the company passed through multiple organisational forms and name changes. In 1996 it was privatised as a branch plant of Hornonitrianske bane Prievidza (HBP), and on 31 December 2006 was absorbed directly into HBP's structure. The main coal seam at Nováky ranged from 6 to 10 metres thick, locally to 26 metres, at working depths of 150 to 450 metres.
Longwall top-coal caving was the primary extraction method. The Slovak government's December 2018 phaseout programme for coal mining subsidies set the course for closure. The Nováky Power Plant, which had been the mine's principal customer since the 1950s, closed on 20 December 2023, the same day the final tonne of coal was extracted from the mine.
Total output from 1940 to closure was approximately 93 million tonnes. This shaft structure is the second of two proximate entries recorded within the Baňa Nováky complex; its individual name has not been identified in the consulted sources.