The publication dedicated to the balancing of mineral resources deposits in Poland has been issued since the 1950s, in 2020 the 68th paper book was published. Several institutions have been responsible for the report, in succession: the Central Geology Office (till 1985), the Ministry of the Environmental Protection and Natural Resources (in 1986–1987) and the Polish Geological Institute – National Research Institute (PGI-NRI) (since 1988). At present, carrying out the national balance of mineral resources is one of the tasks performed by the state geological survey which is fulfilled by the PGI-NRI according to the Geological and Mining Law. Since 2003, the task has been financed by the National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management. There are two main data sources for the mineral resources balancing in Poland: 1) geological documentations collected in the National Geological Archive of PGI-NRI; 2) forms sent to PGI-NRI by concession holders. Initially (in the 1950s), the number of deposits included in “The Balance...” did not exceed several hundred, whereas in the following years the figure has been systematically growing – it exceeded1,000 in 1960, 4,000 in 1986, 13,000 in 2014 and 14,000 in 2020. Such amount of data need to be processed by the special database – it is called the System of management and protection of mineral resources in Poland MIDAS which has been carried out by PGI-NRI since 1988. The publication presents the data within four raw materials groups (energy, metallic, chemical and rock) divided for chapters. There is also a chapter devoted to water defined as a mineral (brines, curative and thermal water). Each chapter provides information on the location of deposits, quality of raw materials, quantity of resources and output, and the list of deposits according to the administrative or regional order. Except for the book form, “The Balance...” is also placed as a PDF version on the website Mineral resources of Poland. This web portal, available at http://surowce.pgi.gov.pl both in Polish and English, was established to meet the needs of those interested in the mineral resources sector in Poland. Aside from “The Balance...”, it also includes: – some additional information on particular raw materials; – sets of maps presenting the occurrence of deposits in Poland and the concession areas; – data on export and import of raw materials; – selected definitions and explanations coming from the law acts.
The Authors analyze the national deficit of mineral commodities (classified as strategic and critical mineral commodities) against the volume of mineral deposits in Poland, from which these commodities are obtained. The assignment of types and subtypes of minerals that are the source of extraction to the corresponding strategic and critical mineral commodities is presented. A comparison was made between the annual extraction of minerals-sources of mineral commodities and their reserves in documented deposits and the volume of exports and imports of strategic and critical mineral commodities. It was found that Poland does not have a number of mineral deposits useful as sources of mineral commodities (strategic and critical) or documented mineral reserves are not sufficient to cover the needs of the national economy for these mineral commodities. Therefore, most of the critical and strategic mineral raw materials are scarce for Poland. A new approach to the classification of critical and strategic mineral commodities and the definition of the scarcity of mineral commodities in the country was proposed. The task of the geological survey is to conduct research to increase the base of mineral resources, especially those of fundamental importance for the economy. Such works are carried out at the Polish Geological Institute for the benefit of the project of State Raw Materials Policy (still under consideration) and should be continued in subsequent years.
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