(SANITIZED) URANIUM MINING IN HUNGARY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80T00246A033200340001-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 24
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 18, 2010
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: March 14, 1957
• Content Type: REPORT

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PROCESSING COPY F
CENTRAL INTELLIGEN E AGENCY
This material contains Information afeotiad the National Defense of the United States within the meaning of the espionage Lawn,. Title
18, V.B.O. Bea. 780 and 784, the transmission or revelation of which In any manner to an unauthorized person is prohibited by law.
COUNTRY Hungary
SUBJECT
DATE
DISTR
1
Uranium mining in
Hu
ngary
. 1
+ March 1957
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NO.
REQU
NO.
PAGES
IREMENT
RD
DATE OF
INFO.
PLACE &
DATE ACQ.
SOURCE EVALUATIONS ARE DEFINITIVE. APPRAISAL OF CONTENT IS TENTATIVE.
five reports on uranium
mining
one on a ustry in general, and four on mines in the Pe g, Hungary -- 25X1
(Nets Washington dishibution indicated by Ix,,; Field dhfrlbution by "#".)
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COUNTRY : Hu$GART
SUBJECT : uranium fields east of PUS*
SECRET
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the only anitki fielas cas? of tLCS are those being prospected
-- 11
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COUNTRY:. ttu~TC t SSR
in I-t ",a
SEC "
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1. The entire uranium- mining u in Hungary is run by an organi<
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cation using the cover-name of the "Bauxite Mining Company" (BAUXIT
DANYA VAT). A company of the sarrie names which actually does
mine Bauxite, has its headquarters in BUDAPEST, but the uranium-mining
.aoncern has its headquarters at PEOS, SZ8L8aI UT 80.
24 The premises it uses are the former SZSLoSI LhiJTANYA Barracks.
tl
From here are directed the uranium mines west of PEGS near KOVAGO
SZ8L8S, and. also the prospecting and preliminary exploration operation:
being conductor) in other parts of the country. The bodies carrying
out those operations are called "Exploration Sections" (SZAMU KJTATOOSi.
and are each given a number. Their location is as follows:-
No. 1 PEOS (actually at K8VAGO SZBLSS)
No. 2 B 'iTASZEK (L4.0 Ions E.N.E. of PEGS)
No. 3 BAU,.TOI +! RED on Lame ETON.
No,, L. SOPRON (probably but not certain)
No. 5 AJKA (26 Inns west of VESZPREM)
Now 6 A place between BUDAORS and NAGYKOVAOSI, vest of BUDAPEST
3. Although all the obovo "Exploration Sections" are subordinate to
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the hoadquartors in PENS, ISHEV (f, n,u), the
Russian Ohief Engineer at BALATONt RED,has a regional responsibility
oovoring SOPRON and AJK ..
LF. The organisation is under comploto Russian controls The hoarI ^f?
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it is a Russian named BAZHAWOV (f, n. u?) the Managing Diroetor, J
5. His deputy is a Hungarian called TAKAOS Laszlo.
25X1
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? - 25X1
sEL
6. The Wolfaro Officer was a Hungarian named HEROZEG Forono.
HEROZEG t E deputy was DONAT Karoly
8. Chief Maintonaneo Engineer was T8R8K Jozsof.
9. The Personnel Manager was DOSZ Janos.
3.0. The accompanying plan (; ppondix "A") shows the Headquarters of
tho Company at PEOS. Items to note aro:-
l. Thoso are the Personnel offices j.nto which now recruits for
the minds are shown, and through which they have to pass in
order to receive the necessary dooumontation, etc,, prior
to starting work.
10. No Hungarian was allowed into this building.
9. Hungarians wore only allowed into this building if invited
by a Russian.
17. Thoso garages house many vehicles, both cars for officials
and for the mines, Thrco or four/are 25X1
normally always standing by in case of accidont or breakdown
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occurring in tho fleotl (running tho shuttle service
between the ,,nos and the railway loading station at
MESOEK Z4 BOLO 'r;.:._ ... 25X1
The Headquarters in PEGS used VV/T to
eoriiaunicato with the various uraniumaentres in Hungary. Such
a link certainly existed in the case of B;TONFURID, where
W/T messages from this PEGS Hatt. wore received by the Postal
0LL' .
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authorities on behalf of the mining tooza.
The boundary on the south and west is a stone wall 2 m. high.
On the north and east it is a wire fence 3 m.. high. There
are Russian and Hungarian guards at the two gates and a patrol.
circulating on the inside of the walls and fence.
No tall buildings overlook this site. -The structures around
it are mainly of the bungalow type, However,, buses run..
constantly in front of the buildings as it is built. on the
main str.:ot of PECS.
11. Ittachod- as Appendix "D" is an artist's view of the Headquarters'
buildings
12. The uranium iaining 3ompany ran a hostel for its single male
onlploycoo at the BAJCSZ-ZSZLZNSZKZ barr^cks in PECS, Married persons
wore accompanied in. the town.
Pan
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SECRET
NJRSERY Y
-Main entrance
GARDENS
1. Per.3onnel Off ice
2. O PUMPS (10,000 litre tank underneath
3. Spare garage (not used much)
4. Personnel officer (including office of Janos DUZS, Medical room,
6.
Finance office) consisting of ground floor and 1 storey
Canteen (in between .4 and 6 - ground floor only
Personnel offices and culture room
7. Offices. Those are j stores themselves but. are the offices
where requisitions for stores are put ins Ground floor - spare
parts for vehicles; lst floor - engineering supplies; 2nd floor
general (clothing, etc.)
8. This is a otoreyed building, the ground floor of which is a
corridor loading from Block 9 to Block 7. Over the corridor is
the Strong Room, containing completed maps, etc., of the mines.
Access is only obtained from Block 9.
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25X1~~Y~,
AYF.BAQI;; "At'
Although the wire can be seen
through, there is a thick row
of bushes on the :amide
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9.
Ground Floor - Clerks
lst Floor - Board Room and Directors offices
2nd Floor - Secretaries (with door leading to Strong Room in
Block 8.
10. Ground Floor - Geologists
1st Floor - Map Room
2nd Floor ., Drawing Office.
11. ;Garage
12. Sparc parts room for Vehicles
13. Oil aturago
14. Telephone Exchange and W/T Room. There are no aerials visible
on the roof. The sets are believed to be shortwave.
l5: Despatch and Transport Section
1.6. Tennis court
17. Volley ball court
Note; In spite of the different number of floors in Block 8, as
compared with Block 7 and 9, the roofs of all three are level.
The same is not true of Blocks 4, 5 and 6, where Block 4 should
be drawn higher than the others.
LPPLMDIX tilL." (cont. )
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'-I1- t
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I of i
COUNTRY:
I'liA9 ART
ti't"uq luxbo at WVr 7
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HUNGARY
SCIhNTIF IC/ECONOiujI C
1. Two pits with vertical haulage gear were I
the area approximately 6 kilometres West of KOVAGOSZILLOS.
2. The Central Organization for Mining (Banyaszati
Tervezo Intezet) of BUDAPEST V, Zvinyi utca I received
instructions in August 1956 to prepare designs for mine-car
washing plants (projects B1 and B2),for the pit-heads at
KOVAGOSZOLI13, These washing plants provided for recovery
of the uraniferous sand from the mine cars immediately
after they had been emptied of coarser material by tipping.
The process comprised a water-spray directeu into he
mine-car at a pressure of 21 atmospheres while' it was held
at a suitable angle in a second tipper: the sand was washed
eff into one of two selectable sumps, allowed to settle
during the idle eight-hour shift, and shovelled by hand int.
special mine-cars on a track below the sumps after the water
had been pumped away. The installation thus provided
some of the features of a settling machine. The design,
which was elabtrate in arder to reduce the risk of any
hold-up in procedure because of clogged or faulty pumps,
was based on a through-put per eight hour shift cf 150 mine-
cars each with a capacity of 0.7 m3. On the two shift
system, therefore, it could be deduced that a maximum of
,/210
production, at least until the Hungarian revolution, in
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210 m3 of material would be brought to the surface daily.
For further details of the plant see attached sketch.
The designs B1 and B2 were identical in all respects,
and were prepared by the water removal section of the
!,,,lain Department of the Central Organization for I::ining.
The drawings for the first plant were required to be
ready by October 15th 1956: a special praemium was
offered for completion by this target.
3. A completely separate organization was set
up in September 1956 to design and provide the necessary
equipment for the Hungarian uranium mines. This was
located in BUDAPEST, I'.Iunkaosy II. ut, and was not
accessible to employees of the Central Organization for
..fining. though it continued to call on the latter
organization for the design of special plant.
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 UNRfiW
low
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SUBJECT:
T3AUXIT : MINING Co. is the cover name used by the URANIUM MINES at
Peos. This would account for the Soviet interest in the Co.
2. firm received their contracts direct from the 25X1
Bauxite Mining Co. in PECs and there was no direct contact with the
Development Projects of the Bauxite Mining Co. in PECS
REMARKS: 10
parent authority in Budapest
Thaw in a s tree t named Ba 1as i?Zs it ins sky utoa in
Pros-Karwares and this was where
the H.Q. of the Bauxite Mining Co. was located.
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 C' P, 1- E 1 HU1TGl,~_C
ic?ieutific
Doyolopr1el} Projects o, t,' cU} 1,%? i:i3nl .Qo- in f.~LOu
1. The Bauxite Mining Co. in PLOS, which is ouborciinate to the Bauxite
Mining Co. in BGDA~IMST (a joint Russo-Hungarian unu.crtaking), employs
600-700 workers. Its airoctor is a Russian named KOGOIJIOLOV (f. n.u. ).
2. During 1956 the company has. eomplotocl the oinking of 3 shafts at
PL08 to a dopth of 50 motros; production was however nogliible (only
a fort wa&;on-loads being raised). During 1957 it was planned to raise
the number of a'aafto to five and the full planned production would be
30,000 tons of ore per month.
3. An appropriation of 3 milliard. forints was rlado or the pori ud
1956-7 to onaulo the Bauxite !fining Co. to complete its devolopmont
projects. This money was to be spent only on houses and surface instal-
la.ations, Finco all mining machinery was to be supplied by the Russians.
Up to the end of November 1956, 500* riillion forinta had already boon
spent.
4. ,funong the projects completed as a result of contacts Srantod by thc:
Bauxite Mining Co. wore:-
u) the erection of four buildings for the mechanical separation
of ors, designed, to deal with the full planned l?poduction of
30,000 tons per month,
b) the laying of railway tracks to the area of the now shafts,
the installation of loading facilities, the building of a now
railway station at KOVl~GOUZ8LL8S and the construction of a connoct-
inS track from IS'OV &GOSL8LL8S to MOHAOS,
c) the renovation of quayo and loading facilities at MOHACS to
onab.,, the ors to bo shipped away by barge,
d) the construction of office buildings and houses for minors.
plovisional barracks for the workers wcro of brick construetion4,
5. powor for those now installations at PLUG was to be provided from
a porter station constructed at KOMLO.
6, 1,n agreement ontorod into by the Bauxite Mining Cs. in ;3UDIBST
proviaod for the allocation of la, of all production to the Hungarians. -
The bnl.aoco wn.s to be ma&Ue(! to Rtt-wia. in pa,>nen for the machinery.
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COUNTRY : HUNGARY
SUBJECT: The PXCZ Uranium Mines.
a.
SECRET
The scent appears to have been laid on speed
where transport of t1 ore was concerned. high speeds were
the rule between the &ina and k;CZABOLC station. e
PEGS. The police apparentl7 declined to take any
action.
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ILLS ID
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-t;F1 i
GRET
1. The only place in Hungary at which uranium ore is produced ixa bulk
is at a site a. k .Xnmetr,,e S.W;.tof "K0VAG&SSCE0Sj e Village 9 kilometres West of
the centre of PECS, In other parts of Hungary, prospecting and limited mining
operations are carried out with a view to ascertaining the whereabouts and
richness of deposits, but at PECS., there exists fully-equipped plant for
extracting the ore on a quantity basis,, It has been in operation for the past
two years or >0G
2, There are four shafts at PEGS, one of which is in the process of
being built,, The main shaft is
140 metres in depth and 4 metres square and has tunnels leading off it at the
base for several hundred metres, There are also tunnels leading off it-at
a depth of 100 metres connecting it with the other two subsidiary shafts 25X1
3. 1 The two shafts are 100 metres deep and 4. metres square and have
no tunnels branching off at intermediate depths. The timnels which branch off
at the base do not interconnect., but
25X1
they may be linked up
in the near future. They both., however, have branch.. leading into the lower
half of the principle shaft and trucks are sent up by this route should
the other two be unable to cope with the ore being mined at
any one momert,
25X1
The size of the main tunnels is 22 ti 3 metres high by 2a 3 metres wide,
This has enabled a double track of 64 centimetre narrow. cage rail to be laid to
transport the ore. Side tunnels are only 2 metres wide, and contain only a
single track. The tunnels extend for several hundred metres, 25X1
5, each of the shafts had about 15
or 20 groups of miners working in it during each shift,, Each group consisted
of 8., 10 or 12 men, (depending an the richness of the seam,)for instance the neww
shaft D employed only 3,5 men,
6. The system of extracting the ore was that four man from each group
would be responsible for loading into the trucks.. the rest (whatever the 25X1
size of the group) would act as howors and do the necessary shoring-up of the
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Is ECn
pit sides,
7, In the case of shafts
supplied by the air pumping stations
was worked by compressed air,
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apparatus, like most of the
other machinery at PECS, was Russian, It could only take one trunk at a time, each
trunk being 4 cubic metre in capacity and taken; a load of 250 kilograms, The
complete turn-around took 10 minutes, This time was due to the fact that the
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travelled at a rate of only 40 metres per minute and a great deal of time was needed
to unload the ore from the truck into hoppers at the pit-,head,
started on its journey
the first one had returned,.
9.
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Once a truck had
no other trucks could go until
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Shaft= a newly --opened ones was 6 metres square and., by the middle
of July had reached a depth of 8 - 10 metres, It was? at that time, intended to 25X1
take it to a depth of 80 metres and to begin production by the beginning of December?
The pit-head
superstructure was to be of steel (as opposed to the timber superstructure of the
other pits) and an inspection was made of a steel superstruoturo on a coal-mine at
K(111M0, soon to 'oc a smantled., in order to sec if it would be suitable, It is not
known what decision was taken in the matter,
10.
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two men were responsible for loading the
at'the bottom of the pit, and 2 men for unloading it at the tap,
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U.
The methods of mining at PECS were in no way unusual and closely
resembled those used in ooalitnings i.e, pioks.1 shovels., pneumatic drills and
blastinp,e No mechanical cutters or loaders were used.
12. In addition to these shafts there were numerous trenches which had been
CU
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3 (-q 77:7
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dug in an ateempt to find uranium deposits, They were located mainly between the air-
compressing station and the maLn PEGS w SZIGETVAR road, and to the west of the
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track which led through the sites There was also a long; trench dug
round the others but it was not continuous. The depth of the trenches was 3 25X1
metres the width 80 ems 1 metrep the length varied from 5