Saint Louis University School

SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING AND ARCHITECTURE Seal

Department of Mining Engineering

Distance Learning Modules

For

Elective 1 (Coal Mining) for EM

EM 3121

Prepared by:

Engr. Jerry F. Fata-ek

Faculty

May 2020
To the Student,

Warm Greetings!

Welcome to the EM 3121 Elective 1 (Coal Mining) for EM distance learning course. I am
looking forward to the opportunity we will have to learn and grow together in the course.
The period of study would be from August to December 2020.

Because of the Enhanced and/or General Community Quarantine protocols imposed by

the National and Local government brought about by the COVID 19 pandemic where
social/mass gatherings are prohibited, the traditional face-to-face classroom learning
environment will temporarily not be allowed. In compliance thereof and in our
commitment to provide you for the means to continue with your education, we are
migrating to the distance learning methodology. Distance learning is a method of
studying in which lectures or classes are conducted by correspondence or over the
Internet, without the student's needing to attend a school or college.

If you have a desktop/laptop computer or any capable electronic gadget and internet
access, we will be using the Google Classroom feature of the Google Suite account of
SLU. You can access your SLU official Google account: username: cf6799 @slu.edu.ph
and the default/ temporary password: user! (cf6799). The Google classroom code for
EM 3121 is __________.

If you do not have a computer and/or internet access, a memory device ( USB Flash
Drive) where all materials are stored or equivalent printed materials will be sent to you
through mail or delivery service.

Success in a distance learning class requires just as much work and effort as success
in a traditional classroom. The amount of time you can expect to commit to the class in
any given week will vary but it will probably average around 3 hours per week. No
campus visits will be required because this is a distance learning class.

Your success is important to me. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you are having
difficulty with the course material. General questions about the course should be posted
on the Questions Forum. If you have more personal questions, email (jffata-
ek@slu.edu.ph) is the best way to contact me for a quick response. You may also give
me a text message or a call (09153823242).

I look forward to a new learning experience with you.

Jerry F. Fata-ek
Faculty
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Elective 1 (Coal Mining)

Module 1 Energy 1
Module 2 Coal 12
Module 3 Coal 2 39
Module 4 Surface Mining For Coal 57
Module 5 Underground Mining For Coal 68
Module 6 Underground Mining For Coal 2 87
Module 7 Laws 101
Module 8 Coal Gas 123
 Saint Louis University School
SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING AND ARCHITECTURE Seal
Department of Mining Engineering

MODULE 1
Elective 1(Coal Mining) - Energy

Introduction

This module gives you a discussion on Energy. Specifically, the definition of energy will
be given including the different kinds of energy, types of energy and the two groups of
energy sources.
This module represents the subject that will be encountered with its own topic learning
outcomes and topic outline.
1. Definition of Energy

After finishing this unit, you are expected to be able to:

1. Define what energy is.

2. Learn the different kinds of energy.
3. Learn the types of energies.
4. Learn the groups of energy sources.

Engage

The most basic definition we knew about energy is that it is the ability to do work.
Energy came from the Greek word energeia meaning work.

Explore and Explain

Page 1
A) WHAT IS ENERGY?
- Energy is the ability to do work.
- Work is done when a force (caused by energy) causes an object to move.
- Work = Force x Distance
- Energy is never “used up” it is simply converted from one form to another.
- The term energy is more commonly used as an all-encompassing generic term
describing fuel sources used to provide power.

Three (3) Laws of Energy:

First law – Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. This means that
you cannot make energy out of nothing – the total amount of energy in the
universe is a constant.

Second law – Refers to the state of energy and is reflected in a

measurement of the degree of disorder, (a measurement called entropy).
When you burn a lump of coal, (a material in a very ordered state) a
change occurs which results in a more disordered state and you can never
combine the resultant products, (heat, gases, etc.) back to form that
original lump of coal, (First Law).

 When we use an energy source it is not destroyed but enters a

more disordered state. This makes the energy less available to us
and in converting the energy to power means some loss.

[Entropy - defined as the number of ways a system can be arranged. The

higher the entropy (meaning the more ways the system can be arranged),
the more the system is disordered.]

Third law – States that everything does come to a stop only when the
temperature is at −273.15°C on the Celsius scale. This equates to
−459.67°F. This is called absolute zero and is where the entropy
measurement is 0, (Zero).

B) FORMS OF ENERGY:

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 a g
Heat (geothermal) Gravitational
) )
b h Biomass Energy - energy from
Light (radiant)
) ) plants
Fossil Fuels - Coal, Oil, and Natural
c) Motion (kinetic) i)
Gas
d
Electrical j) Hydro Power and Ocean Energy
)
e
Chemical k) Wind Energy
)
f) Nuclear energy l) Solar energy

C) TWO (2) TYPES OF ENERGY:

a) Potential energy – Stored energy. Energy an object has because of its position
relative to some other object
b) Kinetic energy – Energy possessed by an object in motion.

D) TWO (2) GROUPS OF ENERGY SOURCES:

a) Renewable energy. It is an energy source that can be easily replenished. There

are five (5) main renewable energy sources:

 Solar energy from the sun

 Geothermal energy from the heat inside the earth
 Wind energy
 Biomass energy from plants
 Hydropower from flowing water

b) Non-renewable energy. It is an energy source that cannot be easily

replenished. Non-renewable energy sources are:
 Fossil fuels – Coal, Oil, and Natural gas
 Nuclear energy
 Hydrocarbon gas liquids

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 Renewable and non-renewable energy sources can be used as primary energy
sources to produce useful energy such as heat or used to produce secondary
energy sources such as electricity.

D.1) RENEWABLE ENERGY:

1) Solar energy. Solar is the Latin word for sun - a powerful source of energy that can
be used to heat, cool, and light our homes and businesses.

 We use solar thermal energy systems to:

 Heat water for use in homes, buildings, or swimming pools.

 Heat the inside of homes, greenhouses, and other buildings.
 Heat fluids to high temperatures in solar thermal power plants

 Two (2) ways on how Solar energy can be converted into electricity:

 Photovoltaic (PV devices) or solar cells change sunlight directly into

electricity. Small PV cells can power calculators, watches, and other
small electronic devices. Some PV power plants have large arrays that
cover many acres to produce electricity for thousands of homes.
 Solar thermal/electric power plants generate electricity by
concentrating solar energy to heat a fluid and produce steam that is
then used to power a generator.

 Two (2) main benefits of using solar energy:

 Solar energy systems do not produce air pollutants or carbon dioxide.

 When located on buildings, solar energy systems have minimal impact
on the environment.

 Two (2) main limitations of solar energy:

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  The amount of sunlight that arrives at the earth's surface is not constant. The
amount of sunlight varies depending on location, time of day, time of year, and
weather conditions.
 The amount of sunlight reaching a square foot of the earth's surface is relatively
small, so a large surface area is necessary to absorb or collect a useful amount
of energy.

2) Geothermal energy. The word geothermal comes from the Greek words geo (earth)
and thermal (heat). Geothermal energy is heat from within the earth. This heat can
be recovered as steam or as hot water, and it can be used to heat buildings or to
generate electricity.

 The slow decay of radioactive particles in the earth's core, a process that
happens in all rocks, produces geothermal energy. The earth's core is hotter
than the sun's surface.
 The environmental effects of geothermal energy depend on how geothermal
energy is used or on how it is converted to useful energy. Direct use
applications and geothermal heat pumps have almost no negative effects on
the environment. In fact, they can have a positive effect by reducing the use
of energy sources that have negative effects on the environment.
 Geothermal power plants do not burn fuel to generate electricity, so the levels
of air pollutants they emit are low. Geothermal power plants emit 97% less
acid rain-causing sulfur compounds and about 99% less carbon dioxide than
fossil fuel power plants of similar size. Geothermal power plants use
scrubbers to remove the hydrogen sulfide naturally found in geothermal
reservoirs. Geothermal power plants inject the geothermal steam and water
that they use back into the earth. This recycling helps to renew the
geothermal resource.

3) Wind energy. Wind can be used to do work. The kinetic energy of the wind can be
changed into other forms of energy, either mechanical energy or electrical energy.

 Wind is caused by the uneven heating of the earth's surface by the sun. Because
the earth's surface is made of different types of land and water, it absorbs the
sun's heat at different rates. One example of this uneven heating can be found in
the daily wind cycle.

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  Today, wind energy is mainly used to generate electricity.

4) Biomass energy. Biomass is organic material that comes from plants and animals,
and it is a renewable source of energy.

 Biomass contains stored energy from the sun. Plants absorb the sun's energy in
a process called photosynthesis. When biomass is burned, the chemical energy
in biomass is released as heat. Biomass can be burned directly or converted to
liquid biofuels and biogas that are burned as fuels. Examples of biomass and
their uses for energy:

 Wood and wood processing wastes – burned to heat buildings, to

produce process heat in industry, and to generate electricity.
 Agricultural crops and waste materials – burned as a fuel or converted
to liquid biofuels.
 Food, yard, and wood waste in garbage – burned to generate
electricity in power plants or converted to biogas in landfills.
 Animal manure and human sewage – converted to biogas, which can
be burned as a fuel.

Figure – 2. The Photosynthesis Figure – 3. The Types of

Process Biomass.
5) Hydropower.

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  Hydro means water. Hydro-electric means making electricity from water
power.
 Hydropower is the largest renewable energy source for electricity generation.
 Because the source of hydroelectric power is water, hydroelectric power
plants are usually located on or near a water source.
 Hydropower relies on the water cycle. The amount of precipitation that drains
into rivers and streams in a geographical area determines the amount of
water available for producing hydropower.
 Hydroelectric power uses the kinetic energy of moving water to make
electricity. Dams can be built to stop the flow of a river. Water behind a dam
often forms a reservoir. Dams are also built across larger rivers but no
reservoir is made. The river is simply sent through a hydroelectric power plant
or powerhouse.

Figure – 4. A Water Mill Figure – 5. A Dam

Figure – 6. A Diagram of a Hydroelectric Dam.

D.2) NON-RENEWABLE ENERGY:

1) Fossil fuels.

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  There are three (3) major forms of fossil fuels: coal, oil and natural gas. All
three were formed many hundreds of millions of years ago before the time of the
dinosaurs – hence the name fossil fuels. The age they were formed is called the
Carboniferous Period. It was part of the Paleozoic Era. "Carboniferous" gets its
name from carbon, the basic element in coal and other fossil fuels.
 Fossil fuels are hydrocarbons, primarily coal, fuel oil or natural gas, formed from
the remains of dead plants and animals.
 These are sometimes known instead as mineral fuels.
 Fossil fuels are a great source of energy because they originate from living
things. We know that plants and trees use sunlight to make food from carbon
dioxide and water, using the process called photosynthesis. This is an easy term
to recall when you remember that the prefix 'photo' is Greek for light, and the
suffix 'synthesis' means to make, so photosynthesis is using the energy of
sunlight to make food. This energy from the sun gets stored in the plants and
transferred to any animal that eats the plants.

2) Hydrocarbon gas liquids

 Natural gas and crude oil are mixtures of different hydrocarbons. Hydrocarbons
are molecules of carbon and hydrogen in various combinations. Hydrocarbon gas
liquids (HGL) are hydrocarbons that occur as gases at atmospheric pressure and
as liquids under higher pressures. HGL can also be liquefied by cooling. The
specific pressures and temperatures at which the gases liquefy vary by the type
of HGL. HGL may be described as being light or heavy according to the number
of carbon atoms and hydrogen atoms in an HGL molecule.
 HGL are categorized chemically as:
 Alkanes, or paraffins
 Ethane - C2H6
 Propane - C3H8
 Butanes: normal butane and isobutene - C4H10
 Natural gasoline or pentanes plus - C5H12 and heavier

 Alkenes, or olefins
 Ethylene - C2H4
 Propylene - C3H6
 Butylene and isobutylene - C4H8

Page 8
  Because HGL straddle the gas/liquid boundary, their versatility and high energy
density in liquid form make them useful for many purposes:

 Feedstock in petrochemical plants to make chemicals, plastics, and

synthetic rubber
 Fuels for heating, cooking, and drying
 Fuels for transportation
 Additives for motor gasoline production
 Diluent (a diluting or thinning agent) for transportation of heavy crude
oil

 Hydrocarbon gas liquids are from natural gas and crude oil. HGL are found in
raw natural gas and crude oil, and they are extracted when natural gas is
processed at natural gas processing plants and when crude oil is refined into
petroleum products. Natural gas plant liquids (NGPL) fall solely into the alkanes
category. Refinery production accounts for the remainder of alkanes production,
and it accounts for all of the olefins production data.

2) Nuclear energy.

 Nuclear energy is energy in the core of an atom.

Atoms are the tiny particles in the molecules that make up gases, liquids, and solids.
Atoms themselves are made up of three particles called protons, neutrons, and

Page 9
 electrons. Protons carry a positive electrical charge and electrons carry a negative
electrical charge. Neutrons do not have an electrical charge. There is enormous
energy present in the bonds that hold the nucleus together. This nuclear energy can
be released when those bonds are broken. The bonds can be broken through
nuclear fission, and this energy can be used to produce electricity.

 In nuclear fission, atoms are split apart, which releases energy. All nuclear power
plants use nuclear fission, and most nuclear power plants use uranium atoms.
During nuclear fission, a neutron hits a uranium atom and splits it, releasing a
large amount of energy in the form of heat and radiation. More neutrons are also
released when a uranium atom splits. These neutrons go on to hit other uranium
atoms, and the process repeats itself over and over again. This is called a
nuclear chain reaction. This reaction is controlled in nuclear power plant reactors
to produce a desired amount of heat.

 Nuclear energy can also be released in nuclear fusion, in which atoms are
combined or fused together to form a larger atom. This is the source of energy in
the sun and stars. Nuclear fusion is the subject of ongoing research as a source
of energy for heat and electricity generation, but it is not yet clear whether or not
it will be a commercially viable technology because of the difficulty of controlling
a fusion reaction.

 Uranium is the fuel most widely used by nuclear plants for nuclear fission.
Uranium is considered to be a nonrenewable energy source, even though it is a
common metal found in rocks worldwide. Nuclear power plants use a certain kind
of uranium, referred to as U-235, for fuel because its atoms are easily split apart.
Although uranium is about 100 times more common than silver, U-235 is
relatively rare.

Elaborate:

Exercise:
1. One example of uneven heating can be found in the daily wind cycle. What exactly
happens during this cycle? Illustrate.

Page 10
2. What is the primary concern related to nuclear power plant?

Evaluate:

Evaluate your answers by comparing it to the answer keys below:

1. During the day, the air above the land heats up faster than the air over water. The
warm air over the land expands and rises, and the heavier, cooler air rushes in to take
its place, creating wind. At night, the winds are reversed because the air cools more
rapidly over land than over water. In the same way, the atmospheric winds that circle
the earth are created because the land near the earth's equator is heated more by the
sun than the land near the North Pole and the South Pole.

Figure – 1. How uneven heating of water and land causes wind.

2. The primary environmental concern related to nuclear power is the creation of

radioactive wastes such as uranium mill tailings, spent (used) reactor fuel, and other
radioactive wastes. These materials can remain radioactive and dangerous to human
health for thousands of years. Radioactive wastes are subject to special regulations that
govern their handling, transportation, storage, and disposal to protect human health and
the environment.

MODULE 2
Elective 1(Coal Mining) - Coal

Introduction

This module gives you a discussion on the overview of coal. The definition, origin and
history of coal will be discussed including the classifications, composition and the uses
of coal. Some Coal Mining Terminologies were also included.

Page 11
This module represents the subject that will be encountered with its own topic learning
outcomes and topic outline.

1. Definition of Coal

After finishing this unit, you are expected to be able to:

1. Define the meaning of coal.

2. Differentiate the classifications of coal.
3. Identify the importance of coal.
4. Identify some terminologies on coal mining.

Engage
Coal was formed millions of years ago, before the dinosaurs. It is called fossil fuel
because it was made from plants that were once alive! Since coal comes from plants,
and plants get their energy from the sun, the energy in coal also came from the sun.
The coal we use today took millions of years to form.
Explore and Explain

A) WHAT IS COAL?
Coal is a black or brownish black, solid combustible rock containing less than
40% non-combustible inorganic components formed by the accumulation,
decomposition and compaction of plant materials under long-acting geological
processes. It is composed primarily of carbon along with variable quantities of other
elements, chiefly sulfur, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen.
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring
in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms,
such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later
exposure to elevated temperature and pressure. Coal is composed primarily of carbon
along with variable quantities of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and
nitrogen.
Coal is a fossil fuel and is the altered remains of prehistoric vegetation that
originally accumulated in swamps and peat bogs.

B) HISTORY OF COAL

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 The oldest continuously worked deep-mine in the United Kingdom is Tower
Colliery in South Wales valleys in the heart of the South Wales coalfield. This colliery
was developed in 1805, and its miners bought it out at the end of the 20th century, to
prevent it from being closed. Tower Colliery was finally closed on January 25, 2008,
although production continues at the Aberpergwm (the site of a colliery in South Wales)
drift mine owned by Walter Energy of the USA.
Coal was mined in America in the early 18th century, and commercial mining
started around 1730 in Midlothian, Virginia.
Coal-cutting machines were invented in the 1880s. Before this invention, coal
was mined from underground with a pick and shovel. By 1912 surface mining was
conducted with steam shovels designed for coal mining.

a. Mine Entry Developments.

1) Shafts. Except for the Chinese, who may have mined coal underground, all the early
coal seams were worked from the surface, in fully exposed outcroppings. In the later
Middle Ages, however, exhaustion of outcrop coal in many places forced a change from
surface to underground, or shaft, mining. Early shaft mines were little more than wells
widened as much as miners dared in the face of danger of collapse. Shafts were sunk
on high ground, with adits—near-horizontal tunnels—for drainage driven into the side of
the hill. In England, some shallow mine shafts were exhausted as early as the 14th
century, making it necessary to go deeper and expand mining at the shaft bottoms.
These remained small operations; a record of 1684 shows 70 mines near Bristol,
employing 123 workers. Greater depth created many problems. First, water could no
longer simply be drained away. Crude methods were devised to lift it to the surface. A
bucket-and-chain device was first powered by men and later by horses; a continuous
belt of circular plates was drawn up through a pipe. Windmills were used for pumps. But
shafts had to be restricted to depths of 90 to 105 meters (300 to 350 feet) and a mining
radius of 180 meters. It was not until 1710 that the water problem was eased by
Thomas Newcomen’s steam atmospheric engine, which supplied a cheap and reliable
power source for a vertical reciprocating lift pump.
2) Hoisting. Raising the coal itself was another problem. Manpower, operating a
windlass, was replaced by horsepower; and, as the shafts went deeper, more horses
were added. At Whitehaven in 1801, coal was hoisted 180 metres by four horses at the
rate of 42 – 44 metric tons (46 – 48 tons) in nine hours. The introduction of the steam
engine to hoist coal was a major turning point for the industry. Small steam-powered
windlasses were successfully tried out about 1770. About 1840 the first cage was used
to hoist the loaded car and from 1840 onwards advances in coal-mining techniques
were rapid.

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b. Ventilation

The presence of noxious and flammable gases caused miners to recognize the critical
importance of ventilation in coal mines from the earliest days. Natural ventilation was
afforded by level drainage tunnels driven from the sloping surface to connect with the
shaft. Surface stacks above the shaft increased the efficiency of ventilation; their use
continued in small mines until the early 20th century. The most reliable method, before
the introduction of fans, was the use of a furnace at the shaft bottom or on the surface.
Despite the hazard of fire and explosion, there were still a large number of furnaces
operating, at least in non-gassy mines, in the early 20th century.
 Open-flame illumination, however, was a much more common cause of
explosions until the introduction of the Davy safety lamp (about 1815), in
which the flame is enclosed in a double layer of wire gauze that prevents
ignition of flammable gases in the air of the mine. Presence of strong air
currents, however, made even the Davy lamp unsafe.
 Rotary ventilating fans were introduced in mines in the 18th century.
Originally of wood and powered by steam, they were improved throughout the
19th and 20th centuries by the introduction of steel blades, electric power,
and aerodynamically efficient shapes for the blades.

c. From Manual to Mechanized Extraction

1) Conventional Mining. Early European miners wedged coal out of the seam or broke
it loose with a pick. After explosives were introduced, it was still necessary to undercut
the coal seam with hand tools. The advent of steam, compressed air, and electricity
brought relief from this hard, dangerous work. In 1868, after almost 100 years of trial
and error, a commercially successful revolving-wheel cutter for undercutting the coal
seam was introduced in England. This first powered cutting tool was soon improved by
introduction of compressed air as a power source in place of steam. Later, electricity
was used. The longwall cutter was introduced in 1891. Originally driven by compressed
air and later electrified, it could begin at one end of a long face (the vertical, exposed
cross section of a seam of coal) and cut continuously to the other.
2) Development of Continuous Mining. The conventional mining techniques
described above, made up of the cyclic operations of cutting, drilling, blasting, and
loading, developed in association with room-and-pillar mining. The oldest of the basic
underground methods, room-and-pillar mining grew naturally out of the need to recover
more coal as mining operations became deeper and more expensive. During the late
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1940s, conventional techniques began to be replaced by single machines, known as
continuous miners that broke off the coal from the seam and transferred it back to the
haulage system. The Joy Ripper (1948) was the first continuous miner applicable to the
room-and-pillar method.

3) Origins of Longwall Mining. The other principal method of modern mining, longwall
mining, had been introduced as early as the 17th century and had found general use by
the 19th century, but it had long been less productive than room-and-pillar mining. This
began to change in the 1940s, when a continuous system involving the “plow” was
developed by Wilhelm Loebbe of Germany. Pulled across the face of the coal and
guided by a pipe on the face side of a segmented conveyor, the plow carved a gash off
the bottom of the seam. The conveyor snaked against the face behind the advancing
plow to catch the coal that chipped off from above the gash. Substantially reducing the
labour required at the coal face (except that needed to install roof support), the Loebbe
system quickly became popular in Germany, France, and the Low Countries.

4) Roof Support. The technique of supporting the roof by rock bolting became common
in the late 1940s and did much to provide an unobstructed working area for room-and-
pillar mining, but it was a laborious and slow operation that prevented longwall mining
from realizing its potential. In the late 1950s, however, powered, self-advancing roof
supports were introduced by the British. Individually or in groups, these supports,
attached to the conveyor, could be hydraulically lowered, advanced, and reset against
the roof, thus providing a prop-free area for equipment (between the coal face and the
first row of jacks) and a canopied pathway for miners (between the first and second
rows of jacks).

d. Haulage

1) Manual Labor to Electric Power. In the first shaft mines, coal was loaded into
baskets that were carried on the backs of men or women or loaded on wooden sledges
or trams that were then pushed or hauled through the main haulage roadway to the
shaft bottom to be hung on hoisting ropes or chains. In drift and slope mines, the coal
was brought directly to the surface by these and similar methods. Sledges were pulled
first by men and later by animals, including mules, horses, oxen, and even dogs and
goats.

Page 15
Steam locomotives designed by Richard Trevithick were used in the fields of South
Wales and Tyne and later in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, but they created too much
smoke. Compressed-air locomotives, which appeared in the 1880s, proved expensive
to operate. Electric locomotives, introduced in 1887, rapidly became popular, but mules
and horses were still working in some mines as late as the 1940s.
2) Mechanized loading. The loading by hand of broken coal into railcars was made
obsolete early in the 20th century by mobile loaders. The Stanley Header, the first coal-
loading machine used in the United States, was developed in England and tested in
Colorado in 1888. Others were developed, but few progressed beyond the prototype
stage until the Joy machine was introduced in 1914. Employing the gathering-arm
principle, the Joy machine provided the pattern for future successful mobile loaders.
After the introduction in 1938 of electric-powered, rubber-tired shuttle cars designed to
carry coal from the loading machine to the elevator, mobile loading and haulage rapidly
supplanted track haulage at the face of room-and-pillar mines.
3) Conveyors. In 1924 a conveyor belt was successfully used in an anthracite mine in
central Pennsylvania to carry coal from a group of room conveyors to a string of cars at
the mine entry. By the 1960s belts had almost completely replaced railcars for
intermediate haulage.

e. Preparation

The history of coal preparation begins in the 19th century, with the adaptation of
mineral-processing methods used for enriching metallic ores from their associated
impurities. In the early years, larger pieces of coal were simply handpicked from pieces
composed predominantly of mineral matter. Washing with mechanical devices to
separate the coal from associated rocks on the basis of their density differences began
during the 1840s.
At first, coal preparation was necessitated by the demand for higher heating values;
another demand was for such special purposes as metallurgical coke for steelmaking.
In recent years, as concern has grown over the emission of sulfur dioxide in the flue
gases of power plants, coal preparation has taken on greater importance as a measure
to remove atmospheric pollutants.

C) THE ORIGIN/FORMATION OF COAL

Coal takes millions of years to develop, and is derived from ancient plant matter that
has been subjected to intense heat and pressure that affected physical and chemical
Page 16
alterations. The process through which coal forms from such ancient plants is known as
coalification.
Coal is called a fossil fuel because it was formed from the remains of vegetation that
grew as long as 400 million years ago. It is often referred to as "buried sunshine",
because the plants which formed coal captured energy from the sun through
photosynthesis to create the compounds that make up plant tissues. The most
important element in the plant material is carbon, which gives coal most of its energy.
Most of our coal was formed about 300 million years ago, when much of the earth was
covered by steamy swamps. As plants and trees died, their remains sank to the bottom
of the swampy areas, accumulating layer upon layer and eventually forming a soggy,
dense material called peat.

The quality of each coal deposit is determined by:

 Varying types of vegetation from which the coal originated.
 Depths of burial.
 Temperatures and pressures at those depths.
 Length of time the coal has been forming in the deposit.
The degree of change undergone by a coal as it matures from peat to anthracite is
known as coalification. Coalification has an important bearing on coal's physical and
chemical properties and is referred to as the 'rank' of the coal. Ranking is determined by
the degree of transformation of the original plant material to carbon. The ranks of coals,
from those with the least carbon to those with the most carbon, are lignite, sub-
bituminous, bituminous and anthracite.

"It takes 10 meters of peat to form 1 meter of coal, and it may take 7,000 years to
accumulate this much peat", reports the Bolton Museum on its website.
The energy we get from coal today comes from the energy that plants absorbed from
the sun millions of years ago. All living plants store energy from the sun through a
process known as photosynthesis. After the plants die, this energy is released as the
plants decay. Under conditions favorable to coal formation, however, the decay process
is interrupted, preventing the further release of the stored solar energy.

D) CLASSIFICATION OF COAL

Coal classification refers to any of various ways in which coal is grouped. Most
classifications are based on the results of chemical analyses and physical tests, but
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some are more empirical in nature. Coal classifications are important because they
provide valuable information to commercial users (e.g., for power generation and coke
manufacturing) and to researchers studying the origin of coal.
Coal may be classified in rock types (or lithotypes) based on the presence of
petrological components known as macerals. Based on maceral content and its
appearance in a hand specimen, coal is classified into four (4) principal types: clarain,
durain, fusain, and vitrain.
Coal may also be classified in grades using subjective terms (e.g., “low-sulfur coal,”
“high-ash coal”) with reference to their impurities for commercial purposes.
The carbon content of coal supplies most of its heating value, but other factors also
influence the amount of energy it contains per unit of weight. [The amount of energy in
coal is expressed in British thermal units (BTU) per pound. A BTU is the amount of heat
required to raise the temperature of one pound of water one degree Fahrenheit].

The "rank" of a coal is a measure of how much change has occurred. Sometimes the
term "organic metamorphism" is used for this change. Based upon composition and
properties, coals are assigned to a rank progression that corresponds to their level of
organic metamorphism.

a) Anthracite. ─ Anthracite is coal with the highest carbon content, between

86 and 98 percent, and a heat value of nearly 15,000 BTUs-per-pound.

b) Bituminous. ─ Bituminous coal has a carbon content ranging from 45 to

86 percent carbon and a heat value of 10,500 to 15,500 BTUs-per-pound.
It is used primarily to generate electricity and make coke for the steel
industry. The fastest growing market for coal, though still a small one, is
supplying heat for industrial processes.

c) Subbituminous. ─ Ranking below bituminous is subbituminous coal with

35 to 45 percent carbon content and a heat value between 8,300 and 13,000
BTUs-per-pound. Although its heat value is lower, this coal generally has a
lower sulfur content than other types, which makes it attractive for use
because it is cleaner burning.

d) Lignite. ─ Lignite is a geologically young coal which has the lowest

carbon content, 25 to 35 percent, and a heat value ranging between 4,000

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and 8,300 BTUs-per-pound. Sometimes called “brown coal”, it is mainly used
for electric power generation.
It is fragile and breaks into powder on handling. It is dull brown to blackish
brown in color. It does not have any clear structure.

e) Peat. ─ Peat is a fibrous, soft, spongy substance in which plant remains

are easily recognizable. It contains a large amount of water and must be dried
before use. Therefore, it is seldom used as a source of heat. Peat burns with
a long flame and considerable smoke. Carbon content is between 20 to 25
percent, hydrogen about 5 – 7 % and other traces of constituents like
nitrogen, sulfur, phosphorus.

It has not yet attained the hardness as coal, is friable in nature. It does not
have any definite structure. Peat has not yet been affected by heat and
pressure. It is purely sedimentary in nature. It is light, porous and fibrous
substance light grayish brown to dark brown in color.

Peat Lignite Coal

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 Bituminous Coal Anthracite Coal

Coal through a microscope

(Well preserved woody material is bright red, spores are brilliant yellow, algal material is
yellow-orange, charcoal and opaque minerals are black, and grains of many
transparent minerals are white.)
E) COMPOSITION OF COAL

ELEMENT PERCENTAGE, %
Nitrogen 1.5 %
Oxygen 8%
Carbon 75 %
Ash 10 %
Sulfur 0.5 %
Hydrogen 5%

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F) USES OF COAL

Present day use of coal. Coal has many important uses worldwide. The most
significant uses are in electricity generation, steel production, cement
manufacturing and as a liquid fuel.

Different types of coal have different uses. Steam coal - also known as thermal
coal - is mainly used in power generation. Coking coal - also known as
metallurgical coal - is mainly used in steel production.

Other important users of coal include alumina refineries, paper manufacturers,

and the chemical and pharmaceutical industries. Several chemical products can
be produced from the by-products of coal. Refined coal tar is used in the
manufacture of chemicals, such as creosote oil, naphthalene, phenol, and
benzene. Ammonia gas recovered from coke ovens is used to manufacture
ammonia salts, nitric acid and agricultural fertilizers. Thousands of different
products have coal or coal by-products as components: soap, aspirins, solvents,
dyes, plastics and fibers, such as rayon and nylon. Coal is also an essential
ingredient in the production of specialist products:

 Activated carbon - used in filters for water and air purification

and in kidney dialysis machines.

 Carbon fibre - an extremely strong but light weight

reinforcement material used in construction, mountain bikes and
tennis rackets.

 Silicon metal - used to produce silicones and silanes, which are

in turn used to make lubricants, water repellents, resins,
cosmetics, hair shampoos and toothpastes.

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G) COAL TRANSPORTATION
There are several methods for moving prepared coal from the mine to the markets. The
cost of transport can be substantial and can account for a large fraction of the total cost
to the consumer.

1) Railroads. ─ Rail transportation is by far the most common mode of hauling coal
over long distances. Roadbed and track requirements and large fixed investment in
railcars make rail transport capital-intensive.
2) On-highway Trucks. ─ If haul distances and shipment sizes are small, it may be
advantageous to transport coal by truck through a network of public roads. Whereas off-
highway trucks have exceeded 250 tons in capacity, on-highway trucks are usually
much smaller, not exceeding 25-ton payloads.

3) Barges. ─ Rivers and lakes have long played a major role in the transport of bulk
commodities like coal in Germany, The Netherlands, France, Belgium, Canada, and the
United States. The costs of barge transport depend on the number of barges being
towed by a single towboat; this in turn depends on the dimensions of the waterway.

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4) Conveyors. ─ While use of conveyors for carrying coal over long distances from
producing to consuming centres is uncommon, it is not uncommon to find conveyors
transporting coal from mines to barge-loading stations. In addition, where a power plant
is in close proximity to a mine, conveyors are generally used to transport coal to the
power plant stockpile. Conveyors can traverse difficult terrain with greater ease than
trucks or rail systems, and they can also be extended easily and have the advantage of
continuous transport. Conveyors with wide belts and high operating speeds can have
enormous capacities, varying from 2,000 to 5,000 tons per hour.

5) Slurry Pipelines. ─ Coal slurry is a mixture of crushed coal and a liquid such as
water or oil. The traditional mixture, first patented in England in 1891, consists of 50
percent coal and 50 percent water by weight. So-called heavy coal slurries or slurry
fuels consist of 65 to 75 percent coal, with the remainder being water, methanol, or oil.
Unlike traditional slurry – which is transported by pipeline to the user, who separates the
water from the coal before burning – slurry fuels can be fired directly into boilers.

6) Electric wire. ─ In the early 1960s, dedication of large coal reserves to mine-mouth
power plants resulted in the development of huge complexes involving mining,
preparation, and utility plants. Transportation of electricity from coal-fired power plants
to distant consuming centres is still attractive for several reasons. Coal is generally
available in abundance and is the lowest-cost fuel in many instances. In addition, the
search for inherently cleaner and more efficient ways to burn coal in electric utilities has
intensified.

7) Ships. ─ It is predicted that coal exports and, therefore, the importance of ocean
transport will increase. Ocean transport of coal requires detailed considerations of: (1)
transportation from the mine to the port, (2) coal-handling facilities at the export port, (3)
ocean carrier decisions such as number and size of ships, contractual obligations,
management of the fleet, and route decisions, (4) coal-handling facilities at the
importing port, and (5) transportation from the port to the customer.

H) TOP TEN COAL PRODUCERS (2013)

1) China - China has been by far the biggest coal producing country over the last three
decades. The country produced about 3.6 billion tonnes (Bt) of coal in 2012 accounting
for over 47% of the world's total coal output. The country is also a giant consumer of
coal accounting for more than half of the world's total coal consumption in 2012,
importing 289 million tonnes (Mt) of coal also making it the world's biggest coal importer.

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China possesses the world's third biggest coal reserves, estimated at 114.5Bt as of
December 2012 with around 12,000 coal producing mines spread across 28 provinces.
Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, Shaanxi and Xinjiang are the biggest coal producing provinces
in the country. About half of China's coal is used for power generation, which accounts
for over 80% of the country's electricity output.
2) United States - The United States, the world's second biggest coal producing
country, produced 922Mt of coal in 2012 accounting for more than 13% of the world's
coal production. The US is also the world's second biggest coal consumer, the nation
consumed 11% of world's total coal in 2012 and approximately 37% of the country's
electricity generation fuelled by coal that year.
3) India - India produced approximately 605Mt of coal in 2012 becoming the third
biggest coal producer in the world. India was also the third biggest coal consumer
accounting for eight percent of the world's coal consumption in the same year. India
imported 160Mt of coal in 2012 becoming the third biggest coal importer after China and
Japan. Coal accounts for about 68% of India's electricity generation.
4) Australia - Australia produced 413Mt of coal in 2012 ranking as the fourth biggest
coal producing country in the world. The country exports approximately 90% of its coal
output and is the world's second biggest exporter after Indonesia. Australia exported
383Mt of coal in 2012 and had proven coal reserves of 76.4Bt, which rank as fourth
biggest in the world.
5) Indonesia - Indonesia produced 386Mt of coal in 2012 making it the world's fifth
largest coal producing country. Indonesia overtook Australia as the biggest coal
exporting country in 2011, exporting309Mt of coal in 2012. Indonesia uses coal to
produce approximately 44% of its electricity.
6) Russia - Russia, with 354.8Mt of coal output in 2012, is the sixth biggest coal
producing country in the world. Steam coal accounted for 80% of the total coal output
while the rest 20% was coking coal. Russia is the fifth biggest coal consumer and
exported 134Mt of coal in 2012 making it the world's third biggest coal exporter.
7) South Africa - Coal output, estimated at 280Mt in 2012, made South Africa the
seventh biggest coal producing country. South Africa is also the world's sixth biggest
coal exporting country; exporting 74Mt of coal in 2012. South Africa's coal exports are
mostly made to China, India and Europe. The African country depends on coal for more
than 90% of its electricity generation.
8) Germany - The world's eighth biggest coal producing country, Germany produced
196.2Mt of coal in 2012. The country's brown coal production, estimated at more than
180Mt in 2012, makes it the world's biggest brown coal producer followed by Russia
and Australia. Germany's coal consumption exceeds its coal production as witnessed by
the country's 2012 coal imports standing at approximately 45Mt and making it the sixth
biggest coal importer. About 43% of Germany's electricity generation is coal-based.

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9) Poland - Poland produced 144.1Mt of coal in 2012 becoming the world's ninth
biggest coal producing country and Europe's second biggest coal producer after
Germany. Poland consumes almost all of the coal it produces and is the world's eighth
biggest coal consumer.
10) Kazakhstan - Kazakhstan, with 116.6Mt of coal output in 2012, stands as the
world's tenth biggest coal producing country. Kazakhstan was the 12th biggest coal
consuming country in the same year. Coal accounted for about 85% of the country's
total installed power capacity.

I) MYTH: DIAMONDS ARE FORMED FROM COAL

a) Diamonds were formed about 1–3 billion years ago, that is way earlier than any
known record of even the Earth’s first land plants let alone coal. Coal, known as a fossil
fuel is formed from the dead remains of vegetation like trees, ferns and other plants and
life. The formation of coal takes millions of years and can be traced back to 300 to 400
million years ago, but not a billion years. So, how again are diamonds supposed to have
formed from coal that didn’t even exist then?

b) The chances of coal becoming a diamond are actually quite remote. It is possible,
technically, but diamonds form deep in the earth and coal forms from decaying plant
and animal life at the surface. Coal does contain carbon and carbon may form
diamonds when exposed to high temperatures and extreme pressure, but unless you've
devised a way to get coal to the depths of the earth, chances are your coal isn't going to
turn to diamond any time soon.

c) The transformation of carbon to diamond is a process that takes millions of years to

complete. This takes place 90 to 100 miles below the earth's surface when carbon,
probably pure graphite, is exposed to temperatures exceeding 2,000 degrees F and
pressure that is 50 times greater than the pressure that exists on the surface of the
earth.

d) Graphite and diamonds share a common characteristic. They are both pure carbon.
What distinguishes the two is their molecular makeup. Graphite is composed of layers
of molecules, whereas diamonds are cubic in nature. When subjected to high
temperatures and incredible pressure, graphite molecules are forced to re-align and
form a cubic formation known as crystal, and a diamond is born.

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e) Once formed, it may take another 1,000 or more years for the diamonds to reach the
surface of the earth. Molten magma transports diamonds close to the surface of the
earth where the magma cools and forms veins of rock called kimberlite.

f) These kimberlite veins are often viewed as an indication that diamonds may be
present. Mining takes place at kimberlite sites to extract rough diamonds from the
cooled and hardened magma. The presence of kimberlite itself is not an indication that
diamonds are present; it simply indicates that the possibility of diamond deposits exists.

g) Diamonds are generally mined in kimberlite veins, but it is not unusual to find
diamonds in remote areas where they have been transported from the original site and
deposited. Kimberlite veins may erode over time, causing diamonds to be carried away
with silt and sediment and deposited in other areas. These areas may be some distance
from the original site.

h) Diamonds may also be transported from one area to another via glaciers that pick up
deposits and release them in new areas. Diamonds may travel hundreds of miles before
being redeposited. They may also be scattered along the pathway of the glacier. Finally,
diamonds may enter streams or other water sources once they have been deposited
and travel to even more remote areas, miles from their original kimberlite veins.

A) TERMINOLOGIES: (for your future board exam)

Adit ─ A horizontal opening to an underground mine from the surface.

Afterdamp ─ Afterdamp is a mixture of carbon monoxide (CO) and chokedamp (stythe)
which replaces atmospheric air after an explosion.
Airshaft ─ A vertical shaft in which air is blown down through the various sections of
the underground mine. The air is generated by a large fan on the surface
providing oxygen for the miners below.
Angle of dip — The angle at which strata or mineral deposits are inclined to the
horizontal plane.

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Angle of draw — In coal mine subsidence, this angle is assumed to bisect the angle
between the vertical and the angle of repose of the material and is 20° for flat
seams. For dipping seams, the angle of break increases, being 35.8° from the
vertical for a 40° dip. The main break occurs over the seam at an angle from the
vertical equal to half the dip.
Angle of repose — The maximum angle from horizontal at which a given material will
rest on a given surface without sliding or rolling.
Anthracite ─ Type of coal with highest carbon content (86% to 98%) and thus highest
heat value (nearly 15,000 BTUs-per-pound).
Bank, pit bank or pit brow ─ The bank, pit bank or pit brow is the area at the top of the
shaft.
Banksman or banker ─ A banksman or banker works at the pit bank to dispatch the
coals, and organise the workforce. He is in charge of loading or unloading the
cage, drawing full tubs from the cages and replacing them with empty ones.

Barge ─ A long and large, usually flat-bottomed boat that is unpowered and towed by
other boats or ships, used for transporting goods.
Barrier — Something that bars or keeps out. Barrier pillars are solid blocks of coal left
between two mines or sections of a mine to prevent accidents due to inrushes of
water, gas, or from explosions or a mine fire.
Bell pit ─ A bell pit was a type of coal mine in which coal found close to the surface was
extracted by sinking a shaft and removing coal from around it until the roof
became unstable. It was then abandoned and left to subside. (see Figure – 1)

Figure – 1. A bell pit. Figure – 2. Box Cut

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Bituminous coal ─ Type of coal with carbon content from 45% to 86% and heat value
of 10,500 to 15,500 BTUs-per-pound; most plentiful form of coal in U.S.; used
primarily to generate electricity and make coke for steel.
Bitumen ─ A mixture containing hydrocarbons -- often produced by the processing of
coal or oil -- used in asphalt or tar for road surfacing or waterproofing.
Blackdamp ─ Also known as stythe or choke damp. It is an asphyxiant, reducing the
available oxygen content of air to a level incapable of sustaining human or animal
life. It is not a single gas but a mixture of unbreathable gases left after oxygen is
removed from the air and typically consists of nitrogen, carbon dioxide and water
vapour.
─ A deadly gas that is caused from coal burning in an atmosphere which
lacks oxygen. Mostly a mixture of carbon dioxide and nitrogen found in mines
after fires and explosions.
Bleeder or bleeder entries — Special air courses developed and maintained as part of
the mine ventilation system and designed to continuously move air-methane
mixtures emitted by the gob or at the active face away from the active workings
and into mine-return air courses.
Brattice ─ Brattice, strong canvas sheeting coated in tar to make it air-tight, is used to
make partitions to deflect air into particular areas of a colliery or divide a shaft to
improve ventilation and dilute flammable or noxious gases.
Bug dust — The fine particles of coal or other material resulting from the boring or
cutting of the coal face by drill or machine.
Bump (or burst) — A violent dislocation of the mine workings which is attributed to
severe stresses in the rock surrounding the workings.
Butt cleat — A short, poorly defined vertical cleavage plane in a coal seam, usually at
right angles to the long face cleat.
Butt entry — A coal mining term that has different meanings in different locations. It
can be synonymous with panel entry, submain entry, or in its older sense it refers
to an entry that is "butt" onto the coal cleavage (that is, at right angles to the
face).
Cage ─ A rectangular transporting device used to haul mine cars (pit cars) loaded with
coal or dirt and rock from the earth below. The cage was also used to transport
miners, mules and supplies to and from the workplace below.
Cager ─ Person who worked at the cages loading and unloading the mine cars etc. on
to the cages.
Carat ─ A unit of weight for precious stones, equivalent to 200 mg.

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Chain pillar — The pillar of coal left to protect the gangway or entry and the parallel
airways.
Chock — Large hydraulic jacks used to support roof in longwall and shortwall mining
systems.
Clean Coal Technologies — A number of innovative, new technologies designed to
use coal in a more efficient and cost-effective manner while enhancing
environmental protection. Several promising technologies include: fluidized-bed
combustion, integrated gasification combined cycle, limestone injection multi-
stage burner, enhanced flue gas desulfurization (or "scrubbing"), coal liquefaction
and coal gasification.
Coal desulphurisation — Removal of sulphur from coal or coal gas.
Coal dust — Particles of coal that can pass a No. 20 sieve.
Coal Gasification — The conversion of coal into a gaseous fuel.

Coal washing — The process of separating undesirable materials from coal based on
differences in densities. Pyritic sulfur, or sulfur combined with iron, is heavier and
sinks in water; coal is lighter and floats.
Coke ─ a hard, dry substance containing carbon that's produced by heating bituminous
coal to a very high temperature in the absence of air.
Colliery — British name for coal mine.
Creep — The forcing of pillars into soft bottom by the weight of a strong roof. In surface
mining, a very slow movement of slopes downhill.
Crop coal — Coal at the outcrop of the seam. It is usually considered of inferior quality
due to partial oxidation, although this is not always the case.
Cross-cut ─ A passageway that extends between horizontal workings within an
underground mine.
Cross entry — An entry running at an angle with the main entry.
Cut-throughs – Are roadways connecting other roadways at intervals forming pillars.
Damp ─ Damp is gas, it derives from the German word dampf meaning vapor.
Davy lamp ─ A Davy lamp is an early type of safety lamp named after its inventor, Sir
Humphry Davy. A similar lamp was designed by George Stephenson.
Deep mine ─ Type of mine created to access coal buried deep underground,
characterized by a set of shafts dug straight down to the coal.

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Dragline ─ A large machine used in the surface mining process to remove overburden,
or layers of earth and rock, covering a coal seam
Drawer ─ A drawer, putter (Northumberland), hurrier (Yorkshire), or waggoner is a
person, usually a boy or young man who pushes tubs of coal from the coal face
to the pit eye. Before 1842 woman did this type of work in some coalfields.
Drift mine ─ Type of mine created to access coal seam exposed by the slope of a
mountain, characterized by an entrance that is a horizontal tunnel into the seam
of coal.
Downcast, downcast shaft ─The downcast is the shaft by which fresh air descends
into the mine. After a disaster at Hartley Colliery in 1862, legislation decreed that
collieries should have two means of entering the coal workings. In effect this
meant two shafts which aided ventilation.
Eye or pit-eye ─The eye or pit-eye is the area at the bottom of the shaft.
Face or coal face ─The coal face is the place where coal is cut from the coal seam
either manually by hewers or mechanically by machine.
 The exposed area of a coal bed from which coal is being extracted.
Feeder — A machine that feeds coal onto a conveyor belt evenly.
Firedamp ─ Firedamp is explosive, flammable gas consisting predominantly of
methane.
Float dust — Fine coal-dust particles carried in suspension by air currents and
eventually deposited in return entries. Dust consisting of particles of coal that can
pass through a No. 200 sieve.
Flue Gas Desulfurization — Any of several forms of chemical/physical processes that
remove sulfur compounds formed during coal combustion. The devices,
commonly called "scrubbers," combine the sulfur in gaseous emissions with
another chemical medium to form inert "sludge" which must then be removed for
disposal.
Fluidized Bed Combustion — A process with a high degree of ability to remove sulfur
from coal during combustion. Crushed coal and limestone are suspended in the
bottom of a boiler by an upward stream of hot air. The coal is burned in this
bubbling, liquid-like (or "fluidized") mixture. Rather than released as emissions,
sulfur from combustion gases combines with the limestone to form a solid
compound recovered with the ash.
Fly ash — The finely divided particles of ash suspended in gases resulting from the
combustion of fuel. Electrostatic precipitators are used to remove fly ash from the
gases prior to the release from a power plant's smokestack.

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Fossil fuels ─ Naturally occurring fuels of an organic nature, such as coal, crude oil,
and natural gas.
Furnace, furnace pit ─ Furnaces were used in the 19th century instead of fans for
ventilation. The furnace was usually at the bottom of the upcast shaft which acted
as a chimney, creating airflow throughout the workings.
Gasification — Any of various processes by which coal is turned into low, medium, or
high Btu gases.
Gate ─ A gate is a tunnel serving the coal face, the maingate is where fresh air enters
and the tailgate is where spent air exits.
Goaf, gove or gob ─ The goaf, gove or gob is the void from which all the coal in a
seam has been extracted and where the roof is allowed to collapse in a
controlled manner.
Greenhouse effect ─ A warming of the earth produced by the presence of certain
gases in the atmosphere.
Heaving — Applied to the rising of the bottom after removal of the coal; a sharp rise in
the floor is called a "hogsback".
Headframe, Headstocks or Headgear ─ The headframe, headstocks or headgear is
the framework holding the winding wheel over the shaft.
Hewer─ A hewer is a coal face worker who digs coal, loosening the coal with a pick.
Highwall — The unexcavated face of exposed overburden and coal in a surface mine
or in a face or bank on the uphill side of a contour mine excavation.
Hogsback — A sharp rise in the floor of a seam.
Hurrier, putter, drawer or waggoner ─ A hurrier (Yorkshire), putter (Northumberland),
waggoner or drawer (Lancashire) was the historic local term for the person who
brought empty coal tubs up to the coal face and took loaded tubs to the pit
bottom.
Hypothetical Resources — Undiscovered Coal Resources in beds that may
reasonably be expected to exist in known mining districts under known geologic
conditions. In general, Hypothetical Resources are in broad areas of coal fields
where points of observation are absent and evidence is from distant outcrops,
drill holes, or wells. Exploration that confirms their existence and reveals quantity
and quality will permit their reclassification as a Reserve or Identified
Subeconomic Resource.
Inbye ─ Inbye means going away from the pit shaft towards the coal face (Opposite of
outbye).

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Indicated coal resources — Coal for which estimates of the rank, quality, and quantity
have been computed partly from sample analyses and measurements and partly
from reasonable geologic projections.
Inferred coal resources — Coal in unexplored extensions of the demonstrated
resources for which estimates of the quality and size are based on geologic
evidence and projection. Quantitative estimates are based largely on broad
knowledge of the geologic character of the deposit and for which there are few, if
any, samples or measurements.
Immediate roof — The roof strata immediately above the coalbed, requiring support
during the excavation of coal.
Kerf — The undercut of a coal face.
Lift — The amount of coal obtained from a continuous miner in one mining cycle.
Lignite ─ Type of coal with lowest carbon content (25% to 35%) and a heat value of
only 4,000 to 8,300 BTUs-per-pound; called "brown coal;" used mainly for electric
power generation.
Liquefaction — The process of converting coal into a synthetic fuel, similar in nature to
crude oil and/or refined products, such as gasoline.
Longwall mining ─ Mechanized technique used to "scrape" coal from a block several
hundred feet wide.
Loose coal — Coal fragments larger in size than coal dust.
Low Sulphur coal — Coal which has a sulphur content generally ranging from 0.1 per
cent to 1.0 per cent. All western Canadian coal is low in sulphur.
Main gate ─ The main gate is the intake airway and the conveyor belt road to move
coal from the face to the shaft.
Measured coal resources — Coal for which estimates of the rank, quality, and quantity
have been computed from sample analyses and measurements from closely
spaced and geologically well-known sample sites, such as outcrops, trenches,
mine workings, and drill holes.
Metallurgical coal — The type of coal which is converted to coke for use in
manufacturing steel; often referred to as coking coal.
Methane monitor — An electronic instrument often mounted on a piece of mining
equipment, that detects and measures the methane content of mine air.
Outbye ─ Outbye means going towards the pit shaft from the coal face. (opposite of
inbye).
Outcrop ─ An outcrop is where the coal seam is exposed at the surface.
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Overburden ─ Layers of earth and rock covering a coal seam.
Panel — A coal mining block that generally comprises one operating unit.
Parting — (1) A small joint in coal or rock; (2) a layer of rock in a coal seam; (3) a side
track or turnout in a haulage road.
Peat ─ Partially carbonized vegetable material, usually found in bogs.
Permissible Explosives ─ An explosive approved by the U.S. Bureau of Mines as safe
for blasting in gassy and dusty mines.
 It is an explosive designed for use underground when there is a possibility of
the formation of explosive mixtures of natural gas or combustible dust with air.
 Permissible explosives contain mainly ammonium nitrate, trinitrotoluene, or
esters of nitric acids.
 Their special features result from the introduction of significant amounts (12 to
75 percent by weight) of components that inhibit the oxidation of methane and
other combustibles and lower the temperature of explosion.
Permitted Explosives ─ Explosive that has passed the Buxton tests and has been
placed on the British list of authorized explosives, implying that they are
reasonably safe to manufacture, handle, transport, and use in safety-lamp mines.
 Upon detonation, a permitted explosive: (1) gives off the minimum possible
quantity of noxious gases, and (2) produces a flame of the lowest possible
temperature and shortest possible duration, to lessen the risk of combustible
gases ignition.
 The explosive contains cooling agents, such as sodium chloride and sodium
bicarbonate.
 The term 'permissible explosive' is used in the United States.
Photosynthesis ─ Process by which green plants convert light to energy by
transforming carbon dioxide and water into carbohydrates.
Pillar ─ A pillar is a section of unworked coal supporting the roof. Unworked pillars of
coal are left to prevent subsidence to surface features such as churches,
motorways, mills and town centres. The shaft pillar is left to prevent damage to
the shafts from the workings.
Pillar robbing — The systematic removal of the coal pillars between rooms or
chambers to regulate the subsidence of the roof. Also termed "bridging back" the
pillar, "drawing" the pillar, or "pulling" the pillar.
Pinch — A compression of the walls of a vein or the roof and floor of a coal seam so as
to "squeeze" out the coal.

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Pit Ponies — Small horses, mules, or ponies which were used to pull coal shuttle cars
from underground mines during the 1800s.
Pneumoconiosis — A chronic disease of the lung arising from breathing coal dust.
Props or pit props ─ Props or pit props are timber or hydraulic supports holding up the
roof.Coal mining term for any single post used as roof support. Props may be
timber or steel; if steel--screwed, yieldable, or hydraulic.
Reclamation — The restoration of land and environmental values to a surface mine site
after the coal is extracted. Reclamation operations are usually underway as soon
as the coal has been removed from a mine site. The process includes restoring
the land to its approximate original appearance by restoring topsoil and planting
native grasses and ground covers.
Recovery Factor — The percentage of total tons of coal estimated to be recoverable
from a given area in relation to the total tonnage estimated to be in the Reserve
Base in the ground.
Red dog — A non-volatile combustion product of the oxidation of coal or coal refuse.
Most commonly applied to material resulting from in situ, uncontrolled burning of
coal or coal refuse piles. It is similar to coal ash.
Reserve — That portion of the identified coal or mineral deposit resource that can be
economically mined at the time of determination. The reserve is derived by
applying a recovery factor to that component of the identified resource
designated as the reserve base or proven reserves.
Reserve Base — That portion of the Identified Coal Resource from which Reserves are
calculated.
Resources — Concentrations of coal in such forms that economic extraction is
currently or may become feasible. Coal resources broken down by identified and
undiscovered resources. Identified coal resources are classified as demonstrated
and inferred. Demonstrated resources are further broken down as measured and
indicated. Undiscovered resources are broken down as hypothetical and
speculative.
Respirable dust — Dust particles 5 microns or less in size.
Respirable dust sample — A sample collected with an approved coal mine dust
sampler unit attached to a miner, or so positioned as to measure the
concentration of respirable dust to which the miner is exposed, and operated
continuously over an entire work shift of such miner.
Retreat mining — A system of robbing pillars in which the robbing line, or line through
the faces of the pillars being extracted, retreats from the boundary toward the
shaft or mine mouth.
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Rider — A thin seam of coal overlying a thicker one.
Ripper, ripping ─ Rippers are men who remove the rock above the coal seam and set
rings (arches) to raise the height of the gate or road as the coal face advances.
Rob — To extract pillars of coal previously left for support.
Robbed out area — Describes that part of a mine from which the pillars have been
removed.
Seam — A stratum or bed of coal.
Sheave ─A large pulley used to guide a cable. Sheaves at the mine were placed at the
highest point of the tipple called the headframe. These sheaves guided the
cables that raised and lowered the cages.
Slack — Small coal; the finest-sized soft coal, usually less than one inch in diameter.
Sough ─ A sough is a drainage tunnel to take water from coal mines without the need
to pump it to the surface.
Skipjack ─ A triggering mechanism that causes mine cars (pit cars) to dump its load of
coal or rock to a designated area at the mine.
Speculative Resources — Undiscovered coal in beds that may occur either in known
types of deposits in a favourable geologic setting where no discoveries have
been made, or in deposits that remain to be recognized.
Sub-bituminous coal ─ Type of coal with 35% to 45% carbon content and heat value
of 8,300 to 13,000 BTUs-per-pound; generally has lower sulfur content than other
types, and so is cleaner-burning.
Tailgate — A subsidiary gate road to a conveyor face as opposed to a main gate. The
tailgate commonly acts as the return airway and supplies road to the face.
Thermal coal — A generic term used to describe coal which is used primarily to
generate heat as opposed to metallurgical coal which is converted to coke for
use in steel production. Sometimes referred to as steam coal.
Undercut — To cut below or undermine the coal face by chipping away the coal by pick
or mining machine. In some localities the terms "undermine" or "underhole" are
used.
Volatile matter — The gaseous part, mostly hydrocarbons, of coal.
Whitedamp ─ Whitedamp is another name for a mixture of carbon monoxide and
hydrogen sulphide.

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 Figure – 3. Classification of Coal Resource and Reserve.
Elaborate:

Exercise:
1. Is there a possibility that diamonds can be formed from coal? Explain
2. What were the uses of coal during the ancient times and the 18 th century?
Evaluate:

Evaluate your answers by comparing it to the answer keys below:

1. Refer to the module

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2. Uses of Coal
a) Ancient Use of Outcropping Coal. There is archaeological evidence that coal was
burned in funeral pyres during the Bronze Age, 3,000 to 4,000 years ago, in Wales.
Aristotle mentions coal (“combustible bodies”) in his Meteorologica, and his pupil
Theophrastus also records its use. The Romans in Britain burned coal before AD 400;
cinders have been found among the ruins of Roman villas and towns and along the
Roman wall, especially in Northumberland, near the outcrop of coal seams. The Hopi
Indians (Westernmost group of Indians) of what is now the southwestern United States
mined coal by picking and scraping and used it for heating, cooking, and in ceremonial
chambers as early as the 12th century ad; in the 14th century they used it industrially in
pottery making. Marco Polo reports its use as widespread in 13th-century China. The
Domesday Book (1086), which recorded everything of economic value in England, does
not mention coal. London’s first coal arrived by sea in 1228, from the areas of Fife and
Northumberland, where lumps broken from submarine outcroppings and washed ashore
by wave action were gathered by women and children. Thereafter, the name sea coal
was applied to all bituminous coal in England. Later in the century, monks began to
mine outcroppings in the north of England.

b) 18th Century. The Industrial Revolution, which began in Britain in the 18th century,
and later spread to continental Europe and North America, was based on the availability
of coal to power steam engines. International trade expanded exponentially when coal-
fed steam engines were built for the railways and steamships. The new mines that grew
up in the 19th century depended on men and children to work long hours in often
dangerous working conditions. There were many coalfields, but the oldest were in
Newcastle and Durham, South Wales, Scotland and the Midlands.

MODULE 3
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 Elective 1(Coal Mining) – Coal 2

Introduction

This module gives you a additional discussion on the overview of coal. Additional coal
mining terms will be included in order to understand more on how coal is being
processed and the problems encountered associated with it.
This module represents the subject that will be encountered with its own topic learning
outcomes and topic outline.
1. Definition of Coal

After finishing this unit, you are expected to be able to:

1. Identify additional coal mining terms.

2. Learn more on how coal is explored and prospected.
3. Learn how coal is prepared for economic purposes.
4. Identify problems encountered associated with coal.
5. Learn the factors to consider in determining the mining method to be used in
the extraction of coal.

Engage
The first recorded discovery of coal was by French explorers in the Illinois River in 1679,
and the earliest recorded commercial mining occurred near Richmond, Virginia in 1748.

Explore and Explain

A) ADDITIONAL COAL MINING TERMS

a) Ash – Inorganic residue left after completely burning coal.

b) Bank Cubic Meters (BCM) – It is a measurement for the volume of waste or ore in
situ before it is mined.
c) Breakers (Rotary) – Raw coal mined in open pits is often tumbled in large rotary
screens where unwanted large rocks mixed with coal during extraction process are
removed prior to the coal being delivered to a processing plant.
d) Break-even Ratio – It is that ratio at which the total cost of marketing one unit of coal
is equal to the price of that unit of coal.

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e) Carbonization ─ It is the process by which coal is heated and volatile products –
gaseous and liquid – are driven off, leaving a solid reside called char or coke.
f) Clean (Product) Coal – Coal which has been processed in a plant in order to meet a
sales contract product specification and is ready to load onto rail cars or other
transportation means.
g) Coke ─ A solid fuel made by heating coal in the absence of air so that the volatile
components are driven off. The solid product resulting from the destructive distillation of
coal in an oven or closed chamber or by imperfect combustion, consisting principally of
carbon: used chiefly as a fuel in metallurgy to reduce metallic oxides to metals.
h) Fixed carbon – Solid portion other than ash present in coal [100 – (IM + VM +
ASH)].
i) Highwall – The unexcavated face of exposed overburden and coal in a surface mine.
j) In Situ Coal – Coal found in its natural state prior to mining.
k) Liquefaction – It refers to the conversion of the coal to a product that is primarily a
liquid (CTL).
l) Load Outs – Facilities comprising storage silos, weight meters and conveyors used to
load coal onto unit trains.
m) Product Coal Specifications – Negotiated maximum and minimum values for ASH,
VOLATILE, FIXED CARBON, SULPHUR, TOTAL MOISTURE and FREE SWELLING
INDEX are usually defined on coking coal sales contracts. As Received Basis (ARB) –
Coal that includes TOTAL MOISTURE, ASH, VOLATILE MATTER, and FIXED
CARBON.
 As Dried Basis (ADB) – Coal that includes INHERENT MOISTURE, ASH,
VOLATILE MATTER, and FIXED CARBON.
 Dried Basis – Coal that includes ASH, VOLATILE MATTER, and FIXED
CARBON.
 Dried ash free basis – Coal that includes VOLATILE MATTER, and FIXED
CARBON.
n) Strip Ratio or Stripping Ratio – The stripping ratio is the most influential economic
factor in the evaluation and planning of open-pit coal mines. It represents the volume of
rock both above and within (partings) coal seams expressed in Bank Cubic Meters
(BCMs) which must be mined to obtain 1 ton of raw or clean coal. The clean coal
stripping ratio is more indicative of a mine’s performance as it includes the expected
performance of the mine’s processing plant.
SR = Unit Waste : Unit Ore

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 Stripping ratio is expressed in units of cubic yards/ton or cubic meters/ton. The
various stripping ratios that are used in surface mining are:

Geometric/Volumetric Stripping Ratio (VSR).

Volume of Overburden/Waste Rock , m3

VSR =
Volume of Ore, m3

Overall Stripping Ratio (OSR) – The ratio of the total volume of waste to the ore
volume to be handled over the whole mine life. It will provide information
regarding overall economic viability of the mine, additionally it helps in waste
dump planning.

Quantity of Overburden Handled over the whole life of the mine, m 3

OSR =
Quantity of Coal Produced over the whole life of the mine, tons

Break-even Stripping Ratio (BESR) – It is a function of ore value and the cost
involved.

(V ─ C ─ E)
BESR =
E

Where: V = is the value of recovered metal per ton of ore.

C = is the cost of production per ton of ore (exclusive of E).
E = is the excavation cost per ton of ore and waste.

BESR = Profit Earned from Coal Mined per Ton

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 Cost of Handling Overburden per cu. m.

For other deposits:

Profit Earned from Ore Mined per Ton

BESR =
Cost of Handling Waste Rock per Ton

Limiting Stripping Ratio (LSR) – It indicates for a given deposit when to switch
over from surface mining to underground mining for higher profitability.

PSM ─ PUGM
LSR =
Cost of Handling Overburden per m3

Where: PSM = Profit earned per ton of ore or coal by surface mining
PUGM = Profit earned per ton of ore or coal by underground
mining
Instantaneous Stripping Ratio (ISR) – It helps in assessing the yearly cash
flow; equipment planning and scheduling; manpower planning; different calendar
planning; and, waste dump planning.

Quantity of Overburden Handled in a Given Instant, m 3

ISR =
Quantity of Coal Produced during the same instant, tons

Quantity of Overburden Handled up to a Given Instant, m 3

ASR =
Quantity of Coal Produced up to the same instant, tons
Average Stripping Ratio (ASR) – It will indicate the economic viability up to the
given instant. This also helps in waste dump planning
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 Incremental Stripping Ratio – refers to the change in the stripping ratio from
year to year.

o) Sulfur – Coal sulfur occurs in three forms: organic, sulfate, and pyritic. Organic sulfur
is an integral part of the coal matrix and cannot be removed by conventional physical
separation. Sulfate sulfur is usually negligible. Pyritic sulfur occurs as the minerals pyrite
and marcasite; larger sizes generally can be removed by cleaning the coal.
p) Swell Factors – Blasting of waste volumes, measured in bank cubic meters, is
undertaken to produce material capable of being loaded into haul trucks. Swell factors
are applied to the blasted rock to adjust for its volume increase when blasted.
q) Volatile Matter (VM) – Gaseous products in coal excluding water vapor.
r) Wash (Processing) Plant – Coal plants segregate the mined coal into different size
categories and on mixing it with water apply different mechanical processes and
equipment to separate the coal from rock or high ash coal particles.
s) Waste – Rock found above and between coal seams being mined within an open-pit
mine boundary.
t) Waste Dumps – Locations which are selected as close as practical to the limits of an
open-pit mine where waste rock is placed by haul trucks.

B) PROSPECTING AND EXPLORATION OF COAL

The fundamental objective of coal prospecting is to discover coal resources

through a search. Coal exploration includes activities and evaluations necessary to
gather data for making decisions on such issues as the desirability of further
exploration, the technical feasibility of mining (including favorable and unfavorable

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factors), and economic feasibility (including size of mine, coal quality assessment,
marketability, and preparation of mined coal for market requirements).

a) Mapping. Geologic mapping is an important task in exploration. Mapping involves

compiling detailed field notes on coal seams, strata above and below the seam, rock
types, geologic structures, stream data, and man-made structures. Good maps and
mapping techniques provide a means for planning and accomplishing exploration,
development, reclamation, day-to-day operations, and equipment moves. Calculation of
material volumes, location of physical elements, and determination of mining conditions
are expedited by the use of maps. Maps also provide a method for recording data so
that they can be organized and analyzed for ready reference.

Aerial photography (technique of photographing the Earth’s surface or features of its

atmosphere or hydrosphere with cameras mounted on aircraft, rockets, or Earth-orbiting
satellites and other spacecraft) and mapping methods (photogrammetry) are increasing
in usefulness, particularly in the exploration and mining of surface deposits.
Photogrammetric methods are relatively easy and inexpensive, can be adjusted to any
scale, and are highly accurate in any terrain. Aerial photography can be conducted at an
altitude designed to produce maps that show drainage configuration, roads, buildings,
lakes, streams, timber, power lines, railroads, and fences or other features that may be
missed by a ground survey.

b) Drilling. Drilling is the most reliable method of gathering information about a coal
deposit and the mining conditions. It provides physical samples of the coal and
overlying strata for chemical and physical analysis.

b.1) Spatial patterns. Numerous factors are associated with a drilling program. One
is the spatial pattern of the holes in an exploration area. When very large areas
are being studied, hole spacing vary greatly and generally are not in any set
pattern. When the program is narrowed to a specific target area, a grid pattern is
most common. In areas where coal is known to exist, closely spaced drill-hole
patterns are required.
b.2) Core drilling and rotary drilling. A second factor associated with a drilling
program is the choice between core drilling and rotary drilling. In core drilling, a
hollow drill bit is attached to a core barrel so that cylindrical samples of the
strata can be obtained. (Since the drill bit is faceted with diamonds for cutting
the strata, this method is also called diamond core drilling.) Photographing the
cores as they come out of the hole can provide data of great reliability. In rotary

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 drilling, the samples obtained are the chips and pulverized rock produced by the
abrasive and chipping action of the drill bit. Rotary drilling is faster and
comparatively less expensive than core drilling. In fact, it is not uncommon to
drill down to the top of the coal seam by rotary drilling and then replace the drill
tools for core drilling. In most programs, only 10 to 25 percent of the holes are
actually cored for detailed information on overlying strata and coal. Coring of the
coal seam itself, however, should closely approach 100 percent; if it does not,
the analytical information obtained should be considered suspect.
b.3) Dozer cutting. Exploration of coal outcrops may be accomplished with dozer
cuts at regular intervals. Dozer cutting provides information on the attitude of the
coal and on the nature of the overburden – important factors with regard to
machine operation.

c) Geophysical Exploration. In geophysical exploration, the seismic, electric,

magnetic, radiometric, and gravitational properties of earth materials are measured in
order to detect anomalies that may be caused by the presence of mineral deposits.
Their form of exploration may begin with airborne methods in regional and target-area
investigations and continue with on-ground methods during detailed investigations. The
most widely utilized airborne methods are, in increasing order of use, magnetic,
magnetic plus radiometric, magnetic plus electromagnetic, and electromagnetic. These
methods are almost always accompanied by aerial photography.

C) COAL PREPARATION

During the formation of coal and subsequent geologic activities, a coal seam may
acquire mineral matter, veins of clay, bands of rock, and igneous intrusions. In addition,
during the process of mining, a portion of the roof and floor material may be taken along
with the coal seam in order to create adequate working height for the equipment and
miners. Therefore, run-of-mine (ROM) coal - the coal that comes directly from a mine -
has impurities associated with it. The buyer, on the other hand, may demand certain
specifications depending on the intended use of the coal, whether for utility combustion,
carbonization, liquefaction, or gasification. In very simple terms, the process of
converting ROM coal into marketable products is called coal preparation.
Coal preparation is the removal of undesirable material (ash, sulphur, moisture)
from the Run-of-Mine (ROM) coal by employing separation processes which are able to
differentiate between the physical and surface properties of the coal and the impurities.
Coal preparation is also called as Washing, Cleaning, and Processing of coal. Coal

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processing plays an important role in the electrical power supply chain by providing
high-quality fuel for coal-fired utilities and industrial boilers.
Coal preparation – also known as beneficiation processing or washing – refers to
the treatment of ROM to ensure a consistent quality and to enhance its suitability for
particular end-uses.
Coal preparation depends on the mineral’s properties and its intended use. It
may require only simple crushing or it may need to go through a complex treatment of
washing and processing to reduce impurities.

a) Levels of Cleaning. Coal preparation results in at least two product streams, the
clean coal product and the reject. Generally, five levels of preparation can be identified,
each being an incremental level of cleaning over the previous one.

a.1) Level 0. At this level, no coal cleaning is done; ROM coal is shipped directly to
the customer.
a.2) Level 1. ROM coal is crushed to below a maximum size; undesirable
constituents such as tramp iron, timber, and perhaps strong rocks are removed;
the product is commonly called raw coal.
a.3) Level 2. The product from level 1 is sized into two products: coarse coal (larger
than 12.5 millimeters) and fine coal (less than 12.5 millimeters); the coarse coal
is cleaned to remove impurities; the fine coal is added to the cleaned coarse
coal or marketed as a separate product.
a.4) Level 3. Raw coal of less than 12.5 millimeters is sized into two products: an
intermediate product (larger than 0.5 millimeter) and a product smaller than 0.5
millimeter; the intermediate product is cleaned to remove impurities; the smaller
product is added to the cleaned intermediate product or marketed separately.
a.5) Level 4. Cleaning is extended to material less than 0.5 millimeter in size.

b) Preparation Steps. In the early days of coal preparation, the objective was to
provide a product of uniform size and to reduce the content of inert rock materials in
ROM coal. Reduction of impurities increased the heating value of the cleaned product,
reduced deposits left on the furnace, reduced the load on the particle-removal system,
and increased the overall operating performance of the furnace. Today, air-pollution
regulations require that ROM coal be cleaned not only of ash and rocks but of sulfur as
well. The processing of raw coals at levels 2, 3, and 4 therefore requires a maximized
recovery of several characteristics (e.g., ash content, heating value, and sulfur content)

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in the respective product streams (i.e., clean coal and the reject). Four (4) steps need to
be considered: characterization, liberation, separation, and disposition.

b.1) Characterization. Characterization is the systematic examination of ROM coal in

order to understand fully the characteristics of the feed to the preparation plant.
Washability studies are performed to determine how much coal can be
produced at a given size and specific gravity and at a particular level of
cleaning. The studies provide a basis for selecting the washing equipment and
preparation-plant circuitry.
b.2) Liberation. Liberation is the creation of individual particles that are more
homogeneous in their composition as either coal or impurities. Liberation is
achieved by size reduction of the ROM coal. It is a level-1 process, the product
of which is the input to a level-2 plant. In general, the finer the ROM coal is
crushed, the greater the liberation of impurities. However, the costs of
preparation increase nonlinearly with decreasing desired size.

Figure – 1. Schematic Diagram of a Flotation Separation Cell.

b.3) Separation. In the separation step, the liberated particles are classified into the
appropriate groups of coal, impurities, and middlings. Since impurities are
generally heavier than middlings and middlings heavier than coal, the methods
most commonly used to separate the input stream into the three product
streams are based on gravity concentration. Relying on differences in the two
physical properties of size and specific gravity, equipment such as jigs, heavy-
media baths, washing tables, spirals, and cyclones separate the heterogeneous
feed into clean, homogeneous coal and waste products. For extremely fine coal,

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 a process called flotation achieves this purpose. (A schematic diagram of a
flotation separation cell is shown in the Figure - 1.)
b.4) Disposition. Disposition is the handling of the products of a preparation plant.
The entire plant process includes ROM storage, raw coal storage, crusher
house, screening plants, various slurries (coal-water mixtures), dewatering
system, thickeners, thermal dryer, process-water systems, clean-coal storage,
clean-coal load-out system, monitoring and process-control system, and refuse-
disposal system. Occupational health and safety hazards as well as
environmental problems are associated with each of these processes. Detailed
planning and designing can eliminate the worst problems of noise, dust, and
visual blight and can also significantly reduce adverse impacts on air, water, and
land.

Figure – 2. Coal Preparation Flow Process.

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 Figure – 3. A Coal Preparation Plant Set-up.

D) PROBLEMS ASSOCIATED WITH COAL

1) Environmental Impacts of Coal Mining

Coal mining can result in a number of adverse effects on the environment. Surface
mining of coal completely eliminates existing vegetation, destroys the genetic soil
profile, displaces or destroys wildlife and habitat, degrades air quality, alters current
land uses, and to some extent permanently changes the general topography of the area
mined. This often results in a scarred landscape with no scenic value. Rehabilitation or
reclamation mitigates some of these concerns and is required by Law.
Mine tailing dumps produce acid mine drainage which can seep into waterways and
aquifers, with consequences on ecological and human health. If underground mine
tunnels collapse, this can cause subsidence of land surfaces. During actual mining
operations, methane, a known greenhouse gas, may be released into the air. And by
the movement, storage, and redistribution of soil, the community of microorganisms and
nutrient cycling processes can be disrupted.

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a) Smoke.
- Smoke is particulate matter containing either uncombusted coke or coal tars, or ash.
- Particulate matter eventually falls to the ground or is inhaled.
- Uncombusted coke can be eliminated by a well-designed furnace.
- Ash (called fly ash) must be removed from the emission vapors in the furnace.
 Electrostatic Precipitators: Smoke passes between two electrode plates, charged
ash particles are attracted to the plates where they are collected.
 Cyclone Collectors: Furnace gas sent into a vortex, heavy ash particles are
centrifuged down to collectors.
- Collected ash is used as raw material.
 Currently ash is used in concrete.
 In the future it may become an important source of Al, Ga, and Ge.

b) Sulfur.
- Coal is < 3% S, has no effect on the combustion of coal and coke. Sources of S are
FeS2 (pyrite), organic sulfides (R-S-R’), and sulfates (SO42-).
- About 15% of S is left behind in ash, the rest is emitted as SO 2 and SO3 (SOx).
- Major environmental pollutant:
 SO2 deposits on surfaces (ie buildings, skin)
 SO3 forms SO42-, which dissolves in H2O and is washed from the air as acid rain.
- S Emission Reduction Strategies:
 Out of sight, out of mind: Early solutions emitted the SOx out of very tall stacks to
disperse it, carry it away from the point of origin, make it someone else’s
problem.
 Burn less S: Use coals with lower S content (most coal in the US is ~ 2.5% S).
Clean coal before combusting (this is expensive).
 Scrubbing: Vapor emission is run over an aqueous limestone (Ca) slurry, forms
CaSO4 sludge.
c) Nitrogen
- N2 in air reacts with O2 at high temperatures to form NO, NO2, NO3 (NOx).
- NOx contributes to smog formation.
- Coal combustion emissions account for only ~5% of NO x formation, and there is
currently no commercial process that removes NOx from vapor streams.
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2) Hazards of Mining and Preparation. ─ Mining operations are hazardous. Each year
hundreds of coal miners lose their lives or are seriously injured. Major mine hazards
include roof falls, rock bursts, and fires and explosions. The latter results when
flammable gases (such as methane) trapped in the coal are released during mining
operations and accidentally are ignited. Promising research in the extraction of methane
from coal beds prior to mining is expected to lead to safer mines and provide a source
of natural gas that has been wasted for so long. Also, the repeated inhalation of coal
dust over extended periods of time can result in serious health problems – for example,
black lung.

3) Hazards of Utilization. ─ Coal utilization can cause problems. During the incomplete
burning or conversion of coal, many compounds are produced, some of which are
carcinogenic. The burning of coal also produces sulfur and nitrogen oxides that react
with atmospheric moisture to produce sulfuric and nitric acids – so-called acid rain. In
addition, it produces particulate matter (fly ash) that can be transported by winds for
many hundreds of kilometres and solids (bottom ash and slag) that must be disposed
of. Trace elements originally present in the coal may escape as volatiles (e.g., chlorine
and mercury) or be concentrated in the ash (e.g., arsenic and barium). Some of these
pollutants can be trapped by using such devices as electrostatic precipitators,
baghouses, and scrubbers. Current research on alternative means for combustion (e.g.,
fluidized bed combustion, magnetohydrodynamics, and low nitrogen dioxide burners) is
expected to provide efficient and environmentally attractive methods for extracting
energy from coal. Regardless of the means used for combustion, acceptable ways of
disposing of the waste products have to be found.
[Note: Magnetohydrodynamics (MHD), also called magnetofluid mechanics, or
hydromagnetics, the description of the behaviour of a plasma, or, in general, any
electrically conducting fluid in the presence of electric and magnetic fields.
Plasma, in physics, an electrically conducting medium in which there are roughly equal
numbers of positively and negatively charged particles, produced when the atoms in a
gas become ionized. It is sometimes referred to as the fourth state of matter, distinct
from the solid, liquid, and gaseous states.]

E) ANALYSIS COAL

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E.1) Two (2) Methods of Analyzing Coal.

a) Ultimate analysis. The ultimate analysis determines all coal component elements,
solid or gaseous. It indicates the various elemental chemical constituents such as
Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, Sulphur, etc. It is useful in determining the quantity of air
required for combustion and the volume and composition of the combustion gases.
b) Proximate analysis. The proximate analysis determines only the fixed carbon,
volatile matter, moisture and ash percentages. Proximate analysis indicates the
percentage by weight of the Fixed Carbon, Volatiles, Ash, and Moisture Content in coal.
The amounts of fixed carbon and volatile combustible matter directly contribute to the
heating value of coal. Fixed carbon acts as a main heat generator during burning. High
volatile matter content indicates easy ignition of fuel. The ash content is important in the
design of the furnace grate, combustion volume, pollution control equipment and ash
handling systems of a furnace.

E.2) Measurement of Moisture; Volatile Matter; and, Carbon and Ash

a) Measurement of Moisture. Determination of moisture is carried out by placing a

sample of powdered raw coal of size 200-micron size in an uncovered crucible and it is
placed in the oven kept at 108 ± 2 °C along with the lid. Then the sample is cooled to
room temperature and weighed again. The loss in weight represents moisture.
b) Measurement of Volatile Matter. Fresh sample of crushed coal is weighed, placed
in a covered crucible, and heated in a furnace at 900 ± 15 °C. The sample is cooled and
weighed. Loss of weight represents moisture and volatile matter. The remainder is coke
(fixed carbon and ash).
c) Measurement of Carbon and Ash. The cover from the crucible used in the last test
is removed and the crucible is heated over the Bunsen burner until all the carbon is
burned. The residue is weighed, which is the incombustible ash. The difference in
weight from the previous weighing is the fixed carbon. In actual practice, Fixed Carbon
or FC is derived by subtracting from 100 the value of moisture, volatile matter and ash.

E.3) Significance of Various Parameters in Proximate Analysis.

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a) Fixed Carbon. Fixed carbon is the solid fuel left in the furnace after volatile matter is
distilled off. It consists mostly of carbon but also contains some hydrogen, oxygen,
sulphur and nitrogen not driven off with the gases. Fixed carbon gives a rough estimate
of heating value of coal.
b) Volatile Matter. Volatile matters are the methane, hydrocarbons, hydrogen and
carbon monoxide, and incombustible gases like carbon dioxide and nitrogen found in
coal. Thus, the volatile matter is an index of the gaseous fuels present. Typical range of
volatile matter is 20 to 35%.
Volatile matter:
 Proportionately increases flame length, and helps in easier ignition of coal.
 Sets minimum limit on the furnace height and volume.
 Influences secondary air requirement and distribution aspects.
 Influences secondary oil support
c) Ash Content. Ash is an impurity that will not burn. Typical range is 5 to 40%.
Ash:
 Reduces handling and burning capacity.
 Increases handling costs.
 Affects combustion efficiency and boiler efficiency
 Causes clinkering and slagging.
d) Moisture Content. Moisture in coal must be transported, handled and stored. Since
it replaces combustible matter, it decreases the heat content per kg of coal. Typical
range is 0.5 to 10%.
Moisture:
 Increases heat loss, due to evaporation and superheating of vapor.
 Helps, to a limit, in binding fines.
 Aids radiation heat transfer.
e) Sulfur Content. Typical range is 0.5 to 0.8% normally.
Sulfur:
 Affects clinkering and slagging tendencies.
 Corrodes chimney and other equipment such as air heaters and economizers.
 Limits exit flue gas temperature.

E.4) Relationship between Ultimate Analysis and Proximate Analysis

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 Table – 1. Relationship between Ultimate Analysis and Proximate
Analysis.
%C = 0.97C + 0.7(VM ─ 0.1A) - M(0.6 ─ 0.01M)

%H = 0.036C + 0.086 (VM ─ 0.1A) ─ 0.0035M2 (1 ─ 0.02M)

%N2 = 2.10 ─ 0.020 VM

Where:
C = % fixed carbon
A = % ash
VM = % volatile matter
% Moisture
M =

F) FACTORS TO CONSIDER IN CHOOSING WHICH MINING METHOD TO USE IN

EXTRACTING A COAL SEAM

1) Technological Factors.
 The number of seams;
 The thickness and steepness of each seam;
 The nature and thickness of the strata overlying the seams;
 The quality of the coal seams;
 The surface topography;
 The surface features;
 The transportation networks available.

2) Economic Factors.
 Energy demand and its growth;
 The supply and cost of alternative sources of energy;
 Coal quality and the cost of coal preparation;
 The selling price of coal;
 Advancements in technology that affect the costs of production;
 Stripping ratio;
 Environmental legislation.

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3) Social Factors.
 Prior history of mining in the area, if any;
 Ownership patterns;
 Availability of labor and local or regional government support.

G) SAMPLE PROBLEM

a) If coal generates a $10/ton earning and overburden costs 50 cents per

cubic yard to move. What is the maximum economic stripping ratio or BESR?

$10.00
BESR = = 20 Cubic yrds/ton
$0.50

Elaborate:

Exercises:

1. Calculate the BESR

Given: Selling cost of coal per ton = $ 2,500.00
Mining and preparation cost per ton = $ 500.00
Overburden handling cost per cubic meter = $ 100.00
2. Aside from what is mentioned above, what other environmental impacts are
associated with coal mining?

Evaluate:

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Evaluate your solution and answers by comparing it with the answer key and solution
below:

1.

Profit Earned from Ore Mined per Ton

BESR =
Cost of Handling Waste Rock per Ton

$2500.0
BESR = 0 - $500 = 20 M3/ton
$100

2. Reflect

MODULE 4
Elective 1(Coal Mining) – Surface Mining for Coal

Introduction

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This module aims to discuss the Mining Methods used for the extraction of coal
particularly the Surface Mining Methods. The equipment used during the actual mining
will also be presented in this module.
1. Definition of Surface Mining

After finishing this unit, you are expected to be able to:

1. Learn the Surface Mining Methods employed in the extraction of coal.

2. Identify Equipment used in Surface Mining for Coal.

Engage
The largest coal mine in the world by reserves is the North Antelope Rochelle coal mine
in the Powder River Basin of Wyoming, US. The mine was estimated to contain more
than 1.7 billion tons of recoverable coal as of December 2018.
Explore and Explain

SURFACE MINING METHODS FOR COAL

Surface mining - also known as opencast or opencut mining - is only economic

when the coal seam is near the surface. Typically appears at depths above 180 ft. It
involves removal of overburden to expose underlying coal seams for extraction. This
method recovers a higher proportion of the coal deposit than underground mining as all
coal seams are exploited - 90% or more of the coal can be recovered.
The Surface Mining Process although approaches to surface coal mining can
vary greatly between individual mine sites, all share a series of common site
development, operational, and reclamation activities, as follows:
1) Access Development – The first step in mine development is construction of a
primary haul road to the mine site to provide public road access for equipment,
employees, and supplies. Other internal haul roads allow movement of equipment and
the haulage of coal and overburden, and these are developed as access is needed to
working areas within a mine site.
2) Erosion and Sedimentation Controls – These controls include sedimentation
ponds constructed to prevent siltation of receiving streams, and ditches constructed to
convey runoff from disturbed areas to the sedimentation ponds. Diversion ditches are
also built around areas affected by mining to divert runoff from upslope areas to natural
drainage ways.

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3) Clearing and Grubbing – This activity involves the removal of trees, stumps, shrubs,
and other vegetation from the area to be affected. This allows for more efficient removal
of topsoil, if topsoil salvaging is employed on a mine site for later use in reclamation.
4) Excavation – This activity is the physical removal of overburden soils and rock
overlying the coal seams to allow equipment access for removal and haulage.
Unconsolidated surface material and weathered bedrock can usually be excavated by
equipment without blasting. To access seams in deeper, unweathered bedrock blasting
is employed as part of the excavation process. The void left after excavation is referred
to as a mine pit. The broken rock that is removed is known as spoil.
5) Backfilling – After coal removal, mine pits are backfilled to dispose of spoil from new
excavations and restore the ground surface. Backfilling, also known as back stacking,
may be accomplished by a variety of methods, including casting by draglines or
shovels, cast blasting, dozer pushes, and truck haulage and dumping.
6) Regrading – This activity is the leveling of spoil areas to final reclamation contours.
After spoil casting or haulage and dumping, spoil areas usually have a very irregular
surface that must be smoothed to better resemble a natural land surface.
7) Topsoil Redistribution or Substitution – The final earthmoving activity is
redistribution of stockpiled topsoil over the reclamation surface, or preparation of a rock-
based topsoil substitute, if topsoil replacement is not employed. Where topsoil has been
stockpiled, it is redistributed by dozers or scrapers at an application rate determined by
available quantities, usually between 4 and 12 inches
8) Revegetation – Following spreading or preparation, the topsoil or topsoil substitute is
amended with fertilizer to create a fertile growing substrate, and planted and seeded
with species mixes reflecting the intended post mining land use. Most minesites occur in
forested areas, and tree planting is sometimes part of the revegetation process. Other
shrub and herbaceous species may be included in the revegetation mix for wildlife
habitat.

A) CONTOUR MINING
a) Contour mining is commonly used where the coal seam outcrops are in areas
with rolling to steep terrain where it is uneconomical or unfeasible due to property
ownership conflicts to remove all of the overburden from a particular coalseam,
and mining is limited to the side of a mountain or to the end of a ridge line.
The contour method is highly dependent on mobile equipment and does not
employ draglines. The lateral movement, or haul back, technique is the most
common contour mining style.
b) Process:

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  The method consists of removing overburden from the coal seam in a pattern
following the contours along a ridge or around a hillside and then, starting at
the outcrop and proceeding along the hillside, creating a bench around the
hill. This results in mine cuts that wrap around mountaintops or ridge lines
parallel to contour in a sinuous pattern dictated by topography. Contour cuts
may be conducted on multiple seams on a given mountain or ridge line,
stepping upward in elevation in a layer-cake pattern and extending to greater
depths because of the stripping ratio benefits of overlying seam mining.
 The overburden is stacked along the outer edge of the bench.
 Final reclamation grading of the highwalls follows the approximate original
slope of the hillside that was mined
c) The limitations on contour strip mining are both economic and technical.
 If the break-even stripping ratio remains favorable, further cuts into the hillside
will be made.
 It may not be technically feasible to exceed a certain height of highwall
depending on the equipment available.

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B) AREA MINING
a) Area mining method is commonly used to mine coal in relatively flat to moderately
rolling terrain.
b) Process:
 Area mining commences with a trench or “box cut” made through the
overburden to expose a portion of the coal seam.
 This trench is extended to the limits of the property in the strike direction.
 After coal removal, a second cut is made parallel to the first one, and the
overburden material from this cut is placed in the void of the first cut.
 The process is repeated in successive parallel cuts until the stripping ratio
indicates that continued surface mining is uneconomical.

Dip Strike

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 A Multi-seam Area Mining.

C) AUGER MINING
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a) Auger mining is used on hillside terrain. It is a secondary extraction method that
allows additional coal extraction from beneath highwalls after their stripping ratio limit
has been reached. This is the last activity to be conducted in a mine pit before it is
backfilled.
b) It is also used where the terrain is too steep for overburden removal and where
recovery by underground methods would be impractical or unsafe.
c) Auger mining is usually associated with contour strip mining.
d) Auger mining can also be utilized in underground mining when faulty or poor roof
conditions are present or other problems preclude the use of other underground mining
techniques.
e) Auger mining is a low-cost method of recovering coal from horizontal or slightly
pitched seams exposed through geological erosion.
f) The power of the machine and the diameter of the cutterhead are the two features
that govern an auger drill’s performance. The greater the power of the machine, the
greater the depth of coal seam into which it is able to bore down, producing a higher
rate of coal.
g) Augers drills used in auger mining can range from 60 to 200 feet (18 to 61 m) in
length to two to seven feet (0.6 to 2.1 m) in diameter.
h) Process:
 It requires a surface cut (removal of overburden and a portion of the
coalbed) to allow the auger access to the bed or the coal is removed by
drilling auger holes from the last contour cut.
 The coal is then extracted and transported up to the surface via the spiral
action of flights.
 Additional auger lengths or flights can then be added as the cutter head
penetrates and drives deeper down into the bored hole.
 Once the coal arrives at the surface, it is lifted up to a dump truck for hauling
by a conveyor or front end loader.

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D) MOUNTAINTOP REMOVAL MINING (MTR)

a) Mountaintop coal mining is a surface mining practice involving the removal of

mountaintops to expose coal seams, and disposing of associated mining overburden in
adjacent valleys "valley fills". Valley fills occur in steep terrain where there are limited
disposal alternatives.
b) Mountaintop removal combines area and contour strip mining methods.

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c) Typical Mountaintop Removal Mining Sequence:
 Step 1. Layers of rock and dirt above the coal (called overburden) are
removed.

 Step 2. The upper seams of coal are removed with spoils placed in an
adjacent valley.

 Step 3. Draglines excavate lower layers of coal with spoils placed in spoil
piles.

 Step 4. Re-grading begins as coal excavation continues.

 Step 5. Once coal removal is complete, final re-grading takes place and the
area is re-vegetated.

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 d) Coal recovery is very high.

e) The very disadvantage of mountaintop removal stems from both the extreme
topographical and ecological changes that the mining site undergoes, as well as from
the storage of waste material generated from the mining and processing of the coal.

E) EQUIPMENT USED IN SURFACE MINING

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 Conveyors
 Dozers and Scrapers.
 Drilling and blasting
 Shovels and trucks
 Wheel excavators
 Draglines
 Bucket Wheel Excavators

A. Dozers and Scrapers B. A Rotary Drill Rig

C. Shovels and Trucks D. Wheel Excavators

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 E. Draglines F. Bucket Wheel Excavators

Elaborate:

Exercise:
1. What are the dangers of Mountain Top removal mining?
Evaluate:

Refer to the video presented using the link below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZmPbB0TKyc&feature=share

MODULE 5
Elective 1(Coal Mining) – Underground Mining for Coal

Page 66
Introduction

This module aims to discuss the Underground Mining Methods in the extraction of coals
particularly the Longwall and Shortwall Mining Methods.. Furthermore, an overview on
Underground Mining will be discussed in order to understand more on how it is done.

1. Definition of Underground Mining

After finishing this unit, you are expected to be able to:

1. Learn the basics about Underground Mining.

2. Identify the Longwall Mining from Shortwall Mining.

Engage

Underground coal mines are way much more expensive compared to Surface coal
mines. With this, certain criteria are being considered if deeper deposits of coal were
discovered.

Explore and Explain

A) TERMINOLOGIES

1) Adit - (from Latin aditus, entrance) It is an entrance to an underground mine

which is horizontal or nearly horizontal, by which the mine can be entered,
drained of water, ventilated, and minerals extracted at the lowest convenient
level. Adits are also used to explore for mineral veins.
2) Box cut – It is a small open cut created to provide a secure and safe portal as
access to a decline to an underground mine. Generally the box cut is sunk until
sufficiently unweathered rock is found to permit the development of the decline.
The portal is generally made safe with rock bolts, wire mesh, and shotcrete,
which prevents accidental rock falls from closing access to the decline.
3) Ore – It is a type of rock that contains sufficient minerals with important
elements including metals that can be economically extracted from the rock. The
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 ores are extracted through mining; these are then refined (often via smelting) to
extract the valuable element(s).
4) Open-pit mining, open-cut mining or opencast mining - It is a surface
mining technique of extracting rock or minerals from the earth by their removal
from an open pit or borrow.

B) UNDERGROUND ACCESS

Accessing underground ore/coal can be achieved via a decline (ramp), inclined

vertical shaft or adit (See Figure – 1).

 Declines can be a spiral tunnel which circles either the flank of the deposit or
circles around the deposit. The decline begins with a box cut, which is the
portal to the surface. Depending on the amount of overburden and quality of
bedrock, a galvanized steel culvert may be required for safety purposes. They
may also be started into the wall of an open cut mine.

 Shafts are vertical excavations sunk adjacent to an ore body. Shafts are sunk
for ore bodies where haulage to surface via truck is not economical. Shaft
haulage is more economical than truck haulage at depth, and a mine may
have both a decline and a ramp.

 Adits are horizontal excavations into the side of a hill or mountain. They are
used for horizontal or near-horizontal ore bodies where there is no need for a
ramp or shaft.

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 Figure – 1. A three-dimensional model of an
Underground mine with shaft access.

C) DEVELOPMENT MINING VS. PRODUCTION MINING

There are two principal phases of underground mining:

1) Development mining - Development mining is composed of excavation almost
entirely in (non-valuable) waste rock in order to gain access to the orebody. There are
six steps in development mining:

 Remove previously blasted material (muck out round),

 Scaling (removing any unstable slabs of rock hanging from the roof and sidewalls
to protect workers and equipment from damage),
 Installing support or/and reinforcement,
 Drill face rock,
 Load explosives, and
 Blast explosives.

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2) Production mining - Production mining is further broken down into two methods,
long hole and short hole. Short hole mining is similar to development mining, except that
it occurs in ore. There are several different methods of long hole mining. Typically long
hole mining requires two excavations within the ore at different elevations below
surface, (15 m – 30 m apart). Holes are drilled between the two excavations and loaded
with explosives. The holes are blasted and the ore is removed from the bottom
excavation.

D) VENTILATION

One of the most important aspects of underground hard rock mining or coal
mining is ventilation. Ventilation is required to clear toxic fumes from blasting, removing
exhaust fumes from diesel equipment and to prevent the accumulation of methane gas.
In deep hot mines, ventilation is also required for cooling the workplace for miners.
Ventilation raises are excavated to provide ventilation for the workplaces, and can be
modified for use as emergency escape routes. The primary sources of heat in
underground hard rock mines are virgin rock temperature, machinery, auto
compression, and fissure water. Other small contributing factors are human body heat
and blasting.

Figure – 2. Door for directing ventilation.

(The ore hopper at the front is not part of the ventilation)

E) GROUND SUPPORT

Some means of support is required in order to maintain the stability of the

openings that are excavated. This support comes in two forms, local support and area
support.

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1) Area Ground Support - Area ground support is used to prevent major ground
failure. Holes are drilled into the back (ceiling) and walls and a long steel rod (or rock
bolt) is installed to hold the ground together. There are three (3) categories of rock bolt,
differentiated by how they engage the host rock. They are:

a) Mechanical bolts

Point anchor bolts (or expansion shell bolts) are a common style of area ground
support. A point anchor bolt is a metal bar between 20 mm – 25 mm in diameter, and
between 1 m – 4 m long (the size is determined by the mine’s engineering department).
There is an expansion shell at the end of the bolt which is inserted into the hole. As the
bolt is tightened by the installation drill the expansion shell expands and the bolt
tightens holding the rock together. Mechanical bolts are considered temporary support
as their lifespan is reduced by corrosion as they are not grouted.

b) Grouted bolts

Resin grouted rebar is used in areas which require more support than a point anchor
bolt can give. The rebar used is of similar size as a point anchor bolt but does not have
an expansion shell. Once the hole for the rebar is drilled, cartridges of polyester resin
are installed in the hole. The rebar bolt is installed after the resin and spun by the
installation drill. This opens the resin cartridge and mixes it. Once the resin hardens the
drill spinning tightens the rebar bolt holding the rock together. Resin grouted rebar is
considered a permanent ground support with a lifespan of 20–30 years.

Cable bolts are used to bind large masses of rock in the hanging wall and around large
excavations. Cable bolts are much larger than standard rock bolts and rebar, usually
between 10–25 meters long. Cable bolts are grouted with a cement grout.

c) Friction bolts

Friction stabilizer (frequently called Split Set) is much easier to install than mechanical
bolts or grouted bolts. The bolt is hammered into the drill hole, which has a smaller
diameter than the bolt. Pressure from the bolt on the wall holds the rock together.

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Friction stabilizers are particularly susceptible to corrosion and rust from water unless
they are grouted. Once grouted the friction increases by a factor of 3-4.
Swellex is similar to Friction stabilizers, except the bolt diameter is smaller than the
hole diameter. High pressure water is injected into the bolt to expand the bolt diameter
to hold the rock together. Like the friction stabilizer, swellex is poorly protected from
corrosion and rust.

2) Local Ground Support - Local ground support is used to prevent smaller rocks from
falling from the back and ribs. Not all excavations require local ground support.

a) Welded Wire Mesh is a metal screen with 10 cm x 10 cm (4 inch) openings. It is held
to the back using point anchor bolts or resin grouted rebar.
b) Shotcrete is fiber reinforced spray on concrete which coats the back and ribs
preventing smaller rocks from falling. Shotcrete thickness can be between 50 mm –
100 mm.
c) Latex Membranes can be sprayed on the backs and ribs similar to shotcrete, but in
smaller amounts.

F) LONGWALL MINING METHOD

Longwall mining is a form of underground coal mining where a long wall of coal

is mined in a single slice (typically 1.0 – 2.0 m thick). The longwall panel (the block of
coal that is being mined) is typically 3–4 km long and 250–400 m wide.

a) History. The basic idea of longwall mining was developed in England in the late
17th century. Miners would undercut the coal along the width of the coal face, removing
coal as it fell, and using wooden props to control the fall of the roof behind the face, this
was known as the Shropshire method of mining. While the technology has changed
considerably, the basic idea remains the same, to remove essentially all of the coal from
a broad coal face and allow the roof and overlying rock to collapse into the void behind,
while maintaining a safe working space along the face for the miners.

Starting around 1900, mechanization was applied to this method. By 1940, some
referred to longwall mining as "the conveyor method" of mining, after the most
prominent piece of machinery involved. Unlike earlier longwall mining, the use of a
Page 72
conveyor belt parallel to the coal face forced the face to be developed along a straight
line. The only other machinery used was an electric cutter to undercut the coal face and
electric drills for blasting to drop the face. Once dropped, manual labor was used to load
coal onto the conveyor parallel to the face and to place wooden roof props to control the
fall of the roof.

Such low-technology longwall mines continued in operation into the 1970s. The best
known example was the New Gladstone Mine near Centerville, Iowa "one of the last
advancing longwall mines in the United States". This longwall mine did not even use a
conveyor belt, but relied on ponies to haul coal tubs from the face to the slope where a
hoist hauled the tubs to the surface.
Longwall mining has been extensively used as the final stage in mining old room and
pillar mines.

b) Conditions.

 Ore strength. Any, but should crash rather than yield under roof pressure;
preferably material that is weak and can be cut by continuous miner.
 Rock strength. Weak to moderate.
 Deposit shape. Tabular
 Deposit dip. Low (< 12 degrees), preferably flat and uniform.
 Deposit size. Large (> 260 Has.); thin bedded (1 – 5m); uniform thickness.
 Ore grade. Moderate.
 Ore uniformity. Uniform (particularly in thickness.
 Depth. Moderate (150 – 900m)

c) Layout. Gate roads are driven to the back of each panel before longwall mining
begins. The gate road along one side of the block is called the “main gate” (or
“maingate”) or headgate; the road on the other side is called the tailgate. Where the
thickness of the coal allows, these gate roads have been previously developed by
continuous miner units, as the longwall itself is not capable of the initial development.

The layout of Longwall could be either “advancing” type or of “retreat” type. In the
advancing type, the gate roads are formed as the coal face advances. In thinner seams
the advancing longwall mining method may be used. In the retreat type, the panel is
formed by driving the maingate, tailgate and a face connecting them both. Only the
maingate road is formed in advance of the face. The tailgate road is formed behind the
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coal face by removing the stone above the coal height to form a roadway that is high
enough to travel in. The end of the block that includes the longwall equipment is called
the face. The other end of the block is usually one of the main travel roads of the mine.
The cavity behind the longwall is called the goaf, goff or gob.

Figure – 3. Longwall Mining Layout.

Figure – 4. Sample of a Longwall Mining Plan.

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 Figure – 5. Schematic Diagram of a Longwall Mining Method.

d) Advancing and Retreating Longwalls. Longwalls can be operated in two ways,

referred to as "advancing" or "retreating" faces or frequently simply as advance or
retreat longwalls.

1) Advancing Longwalls. In this method, the face start point is close to the main
headings, usually leaving a barrier pillar to protect them. Once the face equipment is
installed, extraction commences working away from the main headings towards the
block limit. Obviously the main and tailgates do not exist prior to the start of extraction
and have to be formed at each end of the face as mining progresses. The gate roads
are effectively in the goaf and a false rib has to be installed on one side, usually by
constructing a small pillar, sometimes using stone cut from the roof in thin seams or
using some type of cementitious material brought into the mine. Such gate roads tend to
require a very heavy support system (yielding steel arches have often been used).
Usually a pillar of coal referred to as a "chain pillar" would be left between adjacent
longwall blocks, wide enough to remain intact when carrying the load between two
goaves and protect the gate road. Occasionally two longwalls would be operated
simultaneously, one each side of a shared maingate (in this case referred to as a
"mother gate").

2) Retreating Longwalls. In this method, the gate roads are first driven from the main
headings to the block limits and then connected with a roadway to install the face
equipment. The gate roads may be connected to another set of roadways at that point
for ventilation/gas control purposes. Once the face equipment is installed, production

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commences with the face retreating from the limit back towards the main headings,
usually to finish at a position so that a barrier pillar is left to protect the latter headings.

3) Comparison of Advancing and Retreating Longwalls. The advantages of

retreating longwalls compared to advancing are:

 Gate road formation is remote from face operations (less congestion at face
ends, less supplies into longwall face area, face not held up waiting for gate road
preparation or vice versa, no problems of dust production from gate road
workings affecting longwall personnel).
 No gate or roadway side packs required, so less supplies overall.
 Longwall block is surrounded by roadways before the longwall starts so,
knowledge of strata conditions is much better.
 Gas drainage of adjacent blocks can be carried out starting during development;
with longwall advancing the drilling can only be done behind the face after
longwall extraction, allowing less drainage time before the next block
commences production.
 With retreat longwall mining, additional gateroads or bleeder roadways behind
the goaf area can be developed for ventilation by the development unit if
required. Such additional roadways are much more difficult to mine with an
advancing longwall.
 There are more options for ventilation/gas control using additional roadways at
the limit of the block.
 Advancing longwall gateroads typically require extensive maintenance to
maintain the roadway cross-section (roof and floor brushing) during the life of the
longwall block, whereas retreat longwall gateroads are allowed to collapse
behind the retreating face.

The only real advantages of advancing longwalls are:

 Production can begin earlier as the mine does not have to wait for the gate roads
to be developed before longwall production can commence (provided
development rates are adequate this should only apply for the first longwall in a
mine).
 It provides an opportunity for disposal of stone which has to be excavated into
gate side packs (this benefit is probably more than offset by the costs involved in
pack construction).

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 e) Advantages and Disadvantages of Longwall Mining as compared to other
methods of pillar extraction.

1) Advantages:

 Permanent supports are only needed in the first workings portion and during
installation and recovery operations. Other roof supports (longwall chocks or
shields on modern longwalls) are moved and relocated with the face equipment.
 Resource recovery is very high - in theory 100% of the block of coal being
extracted, though in practice there is always some coal spillage or leakage off the
face haulage system lost into the goaf, especially if there is a lot of water on the
face.
 Longwall mining systems are capable of producing significant outputs from a
single longwall face – 8 million tons per annum or more.
 When operating correctly, the coal is mined in a systematic, relatively continuous
and repetitive process which is ideal for strata control and for associated mining
operations.
 Labor costs/ton produced are relatively low.

2) Disadvantages:

 There is a high capital cost for equipment, though probably not as high as it first
appears when compared to the number of continuous miner units which would be
required to produce the same output.
 Operations are very concentrated ("all eggs in one basket").
 Longwalls are not very flexible and are "unforgiving" - they do not handle seam
discontinuities well; gate roads have to be driven to high standards or problems
will arise; good face conditions often depend on production being more or less
continuous, so problems which cause delays can compound into major events.
 Because of the unforgiving nature of longwalls, experienced labor is essential for
successful operations.

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f) Equipment

1) Chocks (also known as "Powered Supports", "Supports" or "Shields"). Roof

support in early longwalls (in the days of hand mining) was by timber props and bars,
withdrawn from the goaf side as the faces advanced and re-used if still intact.
Eventually these were replaced by steel bars supported by yielding props (eg friction
props where resistance to yield was provided by a wedge system or hydraulic props
which were individual props filled with fluid which could be pumped with an internal
hand pump and released using a valve).

Figure – 6. Sample of a Chock.

In time the hydraulic props (now referred to as legs) were combined in pairs, mounted
on a base and joined with a roof canopy, with adjacent pairs being connected by a
frame containing a horizontal hydraulic cylinder. This enabled each "chock", as the 4
leg sets were called, to advance itself with one pair of legs, released from the roof,
pushing against the 2nd pair which remained set. Such chocks were set along the length
of the face forming a continuous line of "self-advancing supports", sometimes also
referred to as "goal post supports or chocks".

2) Armoured Face Conveyor (Face Coal Haulage). Once the coal is cut, it has to be
removed from the face to the maingate, so some form of coal haulage system is
required. In early hand-working days, belt conveyors were used, but these are not
amenable to high production rates as the whole conveyor had to be moved sideways to
advance the face.

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 The major development, apart from self-advancing supports, allowing high
production longwalls to evolve was the "Armoured Face Conveyor or AFC"
which was originally developed in Germany and was frequently (less so
nowadays) referred to as a "Panzer" conveyor.

Essentially an AFC is a one-sided trough scraper conveyor, the second

side of the trough being formed by the coal face. Cut coal falls into this trough
which has an endless chain with scraper flights attached running along the base
plate and returning below the base plate in an enclosed lower section or "race".
The coal is dragged along the base plate by the flights.

Figure – 7. An Armoured Face Conveyor.

3) Cutting machines

3a) Coal Ploughs. Essentially a plough is a large mass of steel, usually of a more or
less triangular shape when viewed from the coal face or goaf sides, fitted with large
"picks" (more like small agricultural plough blade tips) angled from the steel body
towards the coal face. The plough height is the working height in the seam being mined
(possibly a bit lower if the coal tops can be guaranteed to fall once the coal below is cut.
These "picks" act in a fashion similar to chisels and break a narrow web of coal off the
face (of the order of 300-400mm thick). In most cases there are no moving parts on a
coal plough. (See Figure – 8)

The plough itself is mounted on the front of the AFC and is pushed into the face by push
cylinders mounted in the supports. The plough has an endless chain haulage attached
to the rear, and is driven through sprockets on electric drive(s) at the face end(s).
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The main advantages of ploughs compared to shearers are:

 Cheap
 Simple (no moving parts on the cutting machine itself)
 Relatively low dust make
 Able to keep exposed roof area very small (but a large number of chock
movements would be required to maintain this)

3b) Shearers. A shearer consists of a machine body containing electric motors,

hydraulic equipment and controls which is mounted over the AFC. Horizontal cutting
drums are mounted on the face side of the machine, laced with cutting picks and
rotating in a plane parallel to the face. If the AFC is pushed towards the face as the
cutting drums are rotated and the shearer travels along the face, it is able to cut into the
face for the full web width, moving along a snake in the AFC. This is known as
"sumping in". Once fully into the web, the shearer can advance the full length of the
face cutting out the web. The snake can also be reversed to cut the wedge shaped
portion of coal left while sumping in. (See Figure – 9)

4) Beam Stage Loader and Crusher. When the coal has been hauled to the maingate,
it then has to be transferred through a 90o turn, and loaded onto the maingate conveyor.
This function is carried out by the "Beam Stage Loader or BSL", which is another
scraper conveyor, in this case with steel plates on both sides and runs from the
maingate drive to the maingate conveyor (belt). The BSL has a change of elevation (a
vertical curve) along its length in order to discharge coal onto the maingate conveyor
and in almost all cases, a crusher or breaker is mounted on the BSL to improve loading
onto and to prevent damage to the outbye conveyors. The BSL ends above the boot
and is normally attached to it with an attachment able to rotate horizontally (and with a
limited amount of vertical flexibility).s
5) Maingate Conveyor & Boot End. Because the face moves continuously along the
maingate, at a steady rate if operating correctly, the required maingate belt length is
continuously changing. To allow for this and to avoid too frequent stoppages to shorten
the belt, it is normal for special arrangements to be made at both ends of the belt.

At the face end, a special boot end is installed. The boot is either pushed
outbye through this connection along with the maingate drive and BSL when it
has to be moved or it may be a self propelled, caterpillar track mounted unit. The

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 boot is anchored against the belt tension by its connection through the BSL or
may be wedged to the roof with jacks – it is not pinned or fixed in any other way
as is a conventional belt.

Figure – 8. A Coal Plough. Figure – 9. A Coal Shearer.

Figure – 10. A Beam Stage Loader and Crusher.

g) Cutting Processes. It has been stated that a longwall advances by cutting slices off
the block. This is relatively simple for hand worked faces and with a coal plough, but
with mechanized longwalls using shearers the means of doing this is not as
straightforward as it would at first appear because of the complexity of the equipment.
To start with, the cutting machine has to cut into the face after each slice is taken to line

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itself up to cut the next web. It is incapable of cutting at right angles to the face, so has
to be eased in at an angle. This is achieved by "snaking" the AFC on which the
shearer travels, so that the cutter drum can cut a wedge shaped section of coal until the
full depth of the web is attained.

It is possible to cut a full web in one pass and to do this in either direction, a process
known as "Bi-directional or Bi-di cutting". An alternative is to cut in one direction
only, known as "Uni-directional or Uni-di cutting", often actually cutting only part of
the web height in one direction and the remainder in the reverse direction. There are
other more complicated processes involving only taking half the web width in one pass
and the remainder on the return.

There are two primary sources of dust on a longwall face, the cutting machine and
during support advance. With Uni-di operations it is possible to keep operators on the
intake side of these sources most of the time, particularly with remote or automatic
chock operation. With Bi-di cutting this is not possible at all times.

Another aspect of the cutting process which requires strict attention is the
straightness of the face and its angle to the gate roads. To begin with, the face
equipment is a fixed overall length apart from a small amount of play between items. If
the face contains excessive curvature, particularly in the plane of the seam but also to
some extent perpendicular to it, it could happen that the face end(s) will be within the
longwall block and short of the gate roads. If curvature of the face is too great it is also
possible for the pans to become locked and unable to be advanced.

Face alignment is maintained by checks with a string line across the face. If out of
alignment, a "straightening cut" is done whereby the AFC pans are only partially
advanced by different amounts up to the string line and only a part web is cut across
most of the face.

A face will seldom move in exactly the required direction when advanced. If there is a
dip across the face, the chocks and pans will tend to move down dip all the time. If the
snake is always in the one direction the face will tend to move towards the face end
where the snake begins. If chock side shields only touch one adjacent chock, that chock
will tend to be pushed away from the one it is touching. If the face line is not
perpendicular to the gate roads, the face will tend to move towards the gate which is
lagging. All these factors can act together to tend to move the face towards one gate or

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the other, this movement being known as "face creep". If it is allowed to go too far, the
maingate equipment can run into one of the ribs and the tailgate end may either run into
the rib away from the face or will not reach the edge of the block.

The usual method of "steering" the face is to intentionally cut it at an angle other than a
right angle to the gate roads so one end leads the other and the movement so caused
counteracts the unintentional movement which is occurring. The required angle is
created by cutting a "fly cut", whereby the AFC is set up to a string line set to the
required angle. A wedge shaped web is thus cut. It may be necessary to take more than
one fly cut to achieve the desired angle.

Note that if too great an angle is present this can have the same effect as curvature
on the face where the equipment may not reach the gate roads.

h) Ventilation/Gas Control. The ability to provide adequate ventilation to a longwall

panel can be a major factor in the success of an installation, especially in gassy
conditions. Most gassy mines now use some degree of gas pre-drainage of the seam
being worked which greatly reduces the gas to be dealt with during longwall extraction.
However in many cases much of the gas make from a longwall panel comes from
sources in the roof and/or floor and requires some form of post drainage of strata or
goaf drainage, or otherwise must be handled by the mine ventilation network.

The provision of high ventilating pressures by the use of large surface fans and/or
underground booster fans is becoming more frequent, but this entails high capital and
operating costs and is not always an option in seams liable to spontaneous combustion.
The fact that all longwalls have some airflow through goaves means that particular
attention is required to methods and standards where spontaneous combustion is a risk.
All longwalls, especially those which do not extract the full seam, leave some coal in the
goaf as well as chain pillars each side, and this remaining coal in a poorly ventilated
goaf can form ideal situations for spontaneous combustion to occur.

There are three (3) basic ways of ventilating a longwall panel:

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1) "U Ventilation" where intake air comes in the maingate and returns in the tailgate;
there is no connection to any airways behind the face line. If a longwall advancing face
is ever used, this is the only means of ventilation available.
2) "R Ventilation" in which the main ventilation circuit is as for U ventilation, but there is
another connection (a "bleed") maintained to return airways behind the face.
3) "Z or Y Ventilation" where both main and tailgates carry intake air and all the return
air is carried to main returns behind the face. With this system a variable regulator on
the maingate intake is often used to adjust the balance between face flow and maingate
intake flow.

There are other possible variations, especially if more roadways are available at
each end of the face, and there can be special cases where layouts are not quite
normal, however the majority of faces use one of the above arrangements.
For U and R ventilation, the air flow across the face itself is from main to tail (in the
opposite direction to the coal flow and sometimes referred to as "antitropal"
ventilation). For Z ventilation the flow is from tail to main (or "homotropal"). If Uni-di
cutting is used the air flow direction will govern the direction of cutting.

G) SHORTWALL MINING METHOD

This method of mining was developed in the late 1960's to take advantage of the
then recent development of suitable hydraulic longwall supports, coupled with the
productivity and low capital cost of continuous miners and shuttle cars. In effect it
gained some of the advantages of longwall mining without the cost of installing a
complete set of longwall equipment

An installation roadway was driven as for a normal longwall, but only supports
were installed. A continuous miner was then utilized to cut 3.5m wide open ended lifts
off the face, with shuttle cars being used to transport coal along and off the face to the
maingate belt in lieu of an AFC.
The face length was therefore limited by the length of shuttle car cables then
available, but in practice most shortwall faces were considerably shorter than 90m (<
90m).
Supports were connected to a reference rail which was then utilized to pull the 2
or 3 leg supports forward, in a similar manner to the use of an AFC to advance longwall
supports.
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 Shortwall faces could be installed between two gate roads as for a longwall face,
but in some cases were mined to a blind end and ventilated by auxiliary fan (not very
suitable for gassy seams as the fans could draw from the goaf).
Shortwalls were used in an endeavor to increase the productivity of continuous
miners at relatively low capital cost, sometimes as a transition stage while changing a
mine to full longwall. In some cases, because they were somewhat more flexible,
shortwalls were used to obtain the benefits of longwalls in mines, or parts of mines,
where seam discontinuities or mine geometry made the use of full longwalls impractical

The main disadvantages of shortwalls compared to longwalls are:

 The width of the unsupported roof ahead of the chocks is governed by the width
of a continuous miner as opposed to a shearer drum.
 Personnel have to work adjacent to the face which presents safety issues unless
rib support is installed which would greatly slow production.
 The use of shuttle cars is by its nature not continuous and brings in all the
disadvantages of trailing cables in the face area.

The shortwall method of mining coal is best described as a method similar to

longwall mining with two exceptions. The blocks of panels are smaller, usually ranging
from 100 to 200 feet wide and 300 feet to a half-mile long and the coal is cut with a
continuous miner and is loaded into shuttle cars.

Elaborate:

Exercise:
1. Cite at least FIVE differences between Longwall and Shortwall Mining?
Evaluate:

Refer to your module.

MODULE 6
Elective 1(Coal Mining) – Underground Mining for Coal 2

Introduction

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This module aims to discuss more Underground Mining Methods in the extraction of
Coal. In addition to these, the explosives suitable for any conditions in the underground
will also be presented.

1. Definition of Underground Mining

After finishing this unit, you are expected to be able to identify the different Underground
Mining Methods employed in the extraction of coal.

Engage
Room and pillar (variant of breast stoping), also called pillar and stall, is a mining
system in which the mined material is extracted across a horizontal plane, creating
horizontal arrays of rooms and pillars.
Explore and Explain

A) ROOM AND PILLAR METHOD

a) Overview
 Early room and pillar mines were developed more or less at random, with
pillar sizes determined empirically and headings driven in whichever direction
was convenient.
 Room and Pillar Mining is one of the oldest mining methods.
 Random mine layout makes ventilation planning difficult, and if the pillars are
too small, there is the risk of pillar failure.
 In coal mines, pillar failures are known as squeezes because the roof
squeezes down, crushing the pillars. Once one pillar fails, the weight on the
adjacent pillars increases, and the result is a chain reaction of pillar failures.
 The technique is usually used for relatively flat-lying deposits.
 The key to successful room and pillar mining is in the selection of the
optimum pillar size.
 Generally, rooms are 20-30 feet wide and the pillars up to 100 feet wide.
 As mining advances, a grid-like pattern of rooms and pillars is formed.
 Workers drive bolts of up to eight feet long in the roof of the rooms to keep
the rock above the coal seam from falling in.
 The ore is extracted in two phases.In the first, "pillars" of untouched material
are left to support the roof overburden, and open areas or "rooms" are

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 extracted underground; and, the pillars are then partially extracted in the
same manner as in the "Bord & Pillar method".
 When mining advances to the end of a panel or the property line, retreat
mining begins.
 In retreat mining, the workers mine as much coal as possible from the
remaining pillars until the roof falls in.
 When retreat mining is completed, the mined area is abandoned.

b) Two (2) types of room and pillar mining.

1) Conventional mining; and
2) Continuous mining.
c) Mine Layout
 Room and pillar mines are developed on a grid basis except where geological
features such as faults require the regular pattern to be modified.
 The load-bearing capacity of the material above and below the material being
mined and the capacity of the mined material itself will determine the pillar
size.

Figure – 9. Schematic Diagram of a Room and Pillar Mining Method.

Page 87
 Figure – 10. Room and Pillar Method Using a Continuous Miner.

Figure – 11. Room and Pillar Mining Method Using the Conventional Method.

B) BLAST OR CONVENTIONAL METHOD

a) Overview

 An older practice of coal mining that uses explosives such as dynamite to

break up the coal seam, after which the coal is gathered and loaded onto
shuttle cars or conveyors for removal to a central loading area.
 This process consists of a series of operations that begins with "cutting" the
coalbed so it will break easily when blasted with explosives.
 This type of mining accounts for less than 5% of total underground production
in the U.S. today.

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b) Actions to be taken to avoid methane ignition:

 Specifically designed explosives and detonators are required for use in

underground coal mines.
 Such products come under the “Permitted” category and have to pass critical
tests in simultaneous conditions of field usage.
 Explosives and detonators are tested in both methane-air and coal dust-air
mixtures.

c) Explosives for underground blasting:

1) Permissible/Permitted Explosives. An explosive designed for use underground

when there is a possibility of the formation of explosive mixtures of natural gas or
combustible dust with air. Permissible explosives contain mainly ammonium nitrate,
trinitrotoluene, or esters of nitric acids. Their special features result from the introduction
of significant amounts (12 to 75 percent by weight) of components that inhibit the
oxidation of methane and other combustibles and lower the temperature of explosion.
These components include potassium chloride, sodium chloride, and ammonium
chloride. The action of the chlorides is enhanced when they are used in finely ground
form; if the chlorides are formed during the explosion; their effect is increased as a
result of ion exchange between salts, for example, between ammonium chloride and
potassium nitrate.
"Permissible explosives" means any chemical compound, mixture, or device, the
primary purpose of which is to function by explosion, which explodes from an
instantaneous release of gas and heat and will not cause the ignition of mixtures of
methane and air when detonated. The Mine Safety and Health Administration must
have approved it under 30 CFR 15.1-15.24 (1986).
1.a) Characteristics of Permitted Explosives.
 It should have a reduced flame temperature and duration of flame.
 It should have a good continuity of detonation properties.
 It should maintain its sensitivity and ensure reliable propagation even after being
subjected to the compressive shock wave generated by the earlier fired shot
holes.
 It should be of non-deflagrating type.
 It should be waterproof.
 It should generate low level of toxic post-blast fumes.
 Be relatively insensitive to impact and friction.

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1.b) Three (3) Types of Permitted Explosives:

India Specifications:

 P-1 type. These explosives can be used for drifting or ripping

and simultaneous firing in an undercut/middle cut/overcut and in
depillaring faces, in coal seams of first degree of gassiness.
 P-3 type. Explosives used for drifting or ripping and
simultaneous firing in an undercut/middle cut/overcut in
depillaring faces, in all coal seams.
 P-5 type. These are special type of explosives with a high
degree of intrinsic safety against all types of likely hazards in
delay blasting in coal and specially designed for solid blasting in
conjunction with non-incendive copper short delay detonators.

British Specifications:

SUMMARY OF THE BRITISH PERMITTED EXPLOSIVES

CLASSIFICATION AND TESTS.
GROUP APPLICATION TESTS
P1 Used for instantaneous 1. Twenty-six shots of 142g of explosive, inversely
blasting in undercut coal primed and un-stemmed, are fired into a
or relieved rock (rippings) methane/air mixture. Not more than thirteen
near a coalface, but in ignitions may occur.
British mines with minor 2. Five shots of 795g directly primed and
exceptions, are stemmed, are fired into a methane/air mixture.
principally used for delay No ignitions may occur.
blasting in shafts and 3. Five shots of 795g directly primed and
tunnels away from stemmed, are fired into a coal dust/air mixture.
sources of gas. No ignitions may occur.
P2 These are P1 explosives
sheathed by sodium
bicarbonate (a flame
suppressant). Their use
was discontinued many
years ago.

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 SUMMARY OF THE BRITISH PERMITTED EXPLOSIVES
CLASSIFICATION AND TESTS.
GROUP APPLICATION
P3 Previously known as
‘equivalent to sheathed’,
the flame suppressant is
incorporated in the
composition. Used
mainly for blasting
undercut coal and rock
rippings by single shot-
firing or instantaneous
firing of up to six shots.
P4 Developed specifically for
use in rock rippings with
delay firing where there
is an inherent possibility
of the charge firing into a
gas-filled break or
parting.
P5 Designed for delay
blasting in solid coal (i.e.
not undercut).
P4/5 Designed to meet both
P4 and P5 test conditions tests.
TESTS
1. Twenty-six shots of 397g of explosive, inversely
primed and un-stemmed, are fired into a
methane/air mixture. Not more than thirteen
ignitions may occur.
2. Five shots of 1020g directly primed and
stemmed, are fired into a methane/air mixture.
No ignitions may occur.
3. Five shots of 567g inversely primed and un-
stemmed, are fired into a coal dust/air mixture.
No ignitions may occur.
1. Twenty-six shots of 397g of explosive, inversely
primed and un-stemmed, are fired into a
methane/air mixture. Not more than three
ignitions may occur.
2. Five shots of the maximum permitted charge
mass are fired into a methane/air mixture using
the Break Test 1. No ignitions may occur.
3. Break Test 2 uses a gas mixture of 3.60%
propane with air and nitrogen. This mixture is
more easily ignited than methane/air. Some test
shots are fired and the most hazardous charge
not exceeding 227g determined. Twenty-six
shots are then fired at this mass and not more
than thirteen ignitions may occur.
4. Five shots of 30.5 cm length and 3.7 cm
diameter are fired in methane/air in Break Test
2. No ignitions may occur.
1. Twenty-six shots of 567g of explosive, inversely
primed and charged to reach to 5 cm from the
mouth of the cannon, are fired into a
methane/air mixture. No ignitions may occur.
2. Five shots of 1020g directly primed and
stemmed, are fired into a methane/air mixture.
No ignitions may occur.
3. Five shots of 567g inversely primed and un-
stemmed, are fired into a coal dust/air mixture.
No ignitions may occur.
These explosives must pass both the P4 and P5
Page 91
 Tests Conducted on USA Permissible Explosives:

BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE USA PERMISSIBLE EXPLOSIVE

TESTS (NON-SHEATHED EXPLOSIVES)
TEST DESCRIPTION
Rate of detonation test Unconfined 0.5 inch (12.5 mm) explosives column is
detonated to determine whether an explosive has a
tendency to misfire or partially detonate.
Air-gap sensitivity test An explosive is required to propagate across a 3 inch (75
mm) gap between two unconfined cartridges.
Gallery test 1 Explosive is fired from a steel cannon into an 8% natural
gas mixture.
Gallery test 2 Explosive is fired into a 4% natural gas mixture in which
bituminous coal dust has been pre-dispersed.
Pendulum friction test A small amount of explosives is placed on an anvil and a
pendulum released from 59 inches (1.5 meters).
Toxic gases The standard threshold limit (STL) equivalent for each toxic
gas is measured by firing a one pound (0.45 kg) charge
into a large chamber and analysing the toxic gases
produced.

1.c) Type of Permitted Explosive to be Used per Degree of Gassiness:

TYPE OF
DEGREE OF CLASSIFICATION OF
PERMITTED
GASSINESS GASSINESS
EXPLOSIVE TO USE

< 0.1% of the gas in general

body of air; rate of emission of
I P-1, P-3, P-5
gas is less than 1 cu m/t of coal
production

> 0.1% of the gas in general

body of air; rate of emission is
II P-3, P-5
greater than 1 but less than 10
cu m/t of coal production.

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 Rate of emission is greater than
III P-3, P-5
10 cu m/t of coal production.

1.d) Maximum Permissible Charge per Hole per Type of Explosive.

DEGREE OF MAX. PERMISSIBLE

TYPE OF
GASSINESS/TYPE OF CHARGE PER HOLE
EXPLOSIVES
APPLICATION (gms.)

Degree I mines, cut face,

P-1 800
depillaring

Degree I, II and III mines,

P-3 1,000
cut face, depillaring

P-5 Degree I, solid blasting 1,000

Degree II and III, solid

P-5 565
blasting

2) Airdox. A system for breaking down coal by which compressed air, generated locally
by a portable compressor at 10,000 psi (69.0 MPa), is used in a releasing cylinder,
which is placed in a hole drilled in the coal.Thus, slow breaking results, with no flame, in
producing a larger percentage of lump coal than is made by using explosives. Its
principal advantage is that it may be used with safety in gaseous and dusty mines.

Page 93
 Figure – 12. A Long Airdox Rhino Feeder.

3) Cardox. The cartridge is a hollow steel cylinder into which from 2.5 – 4.5 lbs. of liquid
carbon dioxide are charged under a pressure of about 2,000 lbs/sq. inch. at a
temperature of 30 °F or below. A heating element comprising a paper tube filled with a
mixture of powdered aluminum, charcoal and potassium chlorate is placed in the center
of the cartridge. This heater is ignited by an electric squib.

Figure – 13. A Cardox.

4) Hydrox. It resembles cardox however, the charge is not carbon dioxide but a powder
composed chiefly of ammonium chloride and sodium nitrate. The gaseous products
from the Hydrox charge are mainly carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and water vapor.

d) Detonators.

 Only approved detonators should be used for coal blasting.

 Only electric detonators with copper tube are permitted for use in coal blasting.
 Two (2) types of electric detonators with copper tube:
 Instantaneous Copper Electric Detonators (CED). These are electric
detonators with a copper shell and can be used only with P-1 and P-3 type of
permitted explosives. No. 6 strength.

 Copper Non-Incendive Shot Delay Detonators. These are copper tube

detonators used for delay firing when solid blasting in coal is done. These are
used only with P-5 type of permitted explosives. No. 6 strength.

e) Principles of Coal Blasting:

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1) Blasting on a pre-cut face.
 The length of the shot hole should be at least 15 cm. (6 inch) less than the
depth of the cut.
 The detonators in a round should be fired simultaneously, preferably in
series.
 The maximum charge in a hole should not exceed 800 gm. for P-1
explosives and 1,000 gm. for P-3 and P-5 explosives.
 The depth of cut should be uniform. Generally, the cut depths vary from
1.2 – 1.8 m.
 The cut should be properly cleaned to obtain the maximum advantage.
 Rule of thumb in UG coal blasting with a pre-cut face:
 No. of holes = For each 1 sq. m. area = 1 hole
 Depth of holes = 15 cm. less than the cut length
 Charge per hole = 40% of hole length
 Stemming = 60% of hole length
 Explosive = P-1 for Degree I mines; P-3 for Degree 2/3 mines.

2) Solid Blasting of coal.

 To create an initial cut, cut holes should be either a V-Cut Pattern, a
Wedge Cut Pattern or a Fan Cut Pattern.
 Hole length beyond 70% of seam height would not bring expected results.
 Stemming less than 60% of hole length or improper packing may not be
able to sustain the volume/pressure of gases generated during blasting
making the explosive energy wasted.
 Cut holes should be charged more as compared to other holes.
 Proper initiation sequence should be maintained.

3) Multiple Shot Blasting

 Not more than 20 boreholes are permitted to be fired in a round unless
permission has been obtained from the Mines Safety and Health
Administration (MSHA).
 Instantaneous detonators in combination with delay detonators are not
permitted in the same blasting circuit.
 Only detonators with delay periods of 1,000 milliseconds (ms) or less are
permitted in bituminous and lignite mines.

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4) Determination of Methane
 No shot is permitted to be fired in an area that contains 1.0 volume
percent or more of methane.
 Immediately before shots are fired, the methane concentration must be
determined by a person qualified totest for methane.

f) Safe blasting procedures

1) Storing explosives and detonators

 In a magazine constructed of non-conductive materials.
 Placed in a dry location.
 Out of the line of the blast.
 Separate magazines for explosives and detonators.
 Well rock dusted.
 At least 25-ft. away from roadways and any power source.
 On intake air.

2) Examining the blast area.

 Visual examination of roof and rib conditions.
 Remove any source of electric current.
 Check the area with a blaster’s galvanometer for stray current.
 Check for methane.

3) Containers for explosives and detonators.

 Constructed of non-conductive materials.
 Substantial construction.
 Separate containers for explosives and detonators.

4) Charging the shot.

 Check the depth and direction of the boreholes.
 Check the depth of the undercut, if used.
 Bring necessary equipment to the blasting area.
 Determine the amount of explosives needed.
 Determine the number and type of detonators.

Page 96
  Make the primer and load the boreholes.
 Wire the shot.
 Check the shot for continuity.
 Connect the leg wires to the connecting wires.
 Connect the connecting wires to the blasting cable.
 Check for methane.
 Make certain all persons are clear of the blasting area.
 Post warnings around the area.

5) Firing the shot.

 Check continuity through the blasting cable.
 Sound a warning – Fire! Fire! Fire!.
 Wire to blasting machine and fire the round.
 Shunt the blasting cable.
 Allow time for ventilation.

6) Responsibility after shot.

 Examine the area leading to the blast area for loose roof, ribs and
other dangers.
 Check the methane.
 Check the blast area for misfires.
 If a misfire occurred, contact your supervisor.

C) CONTINUOUS MINING METHOD

First introduced in the late 1940's, continuous miners provided a quantum leap in
the speed and efficiency of extracting coal. Modern versions operate on basically the
same principal as their predecessors using a large rotating steel drum equipped with
tungsten carbide steel "teeth" or cutting bits to cut the coal. Continuous mining currently
accounts for about 49% of total U.S. underground coal production each year.

Standard continuous miners can extract coal at a rate of up to 38 tons a minute

depending upon the seam thickness. New, more powerful continuous miners are highly
productive and are remotely controlled being designed for a variety of seams and

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mining conditions. These make possible even fuller recovery of the available coal, while
removing the machine operator further from the working area.

Continuous miners (Figure – 14) operate a room and pillar mining system. A
series of 18 to 20 foot wide rooms are driven in the coalbed with pillars or columns of
coal left standing to help support the roof. Roof bolts, typically four to six feet long steel
bolts, are inserted into holes bored into the roof to bind the strata together support the
roof.

Figure –14. A Continuous Miner.

Elaborate:

Exercise:
1. How does room and Pillar Method, Blast or Conventional Method and Continuous
Mining Method differ from each other? Cite at least three differences.
Evaluate:

Refer to your module.

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 MODULE 7
Elective 1(Coal Mining) – Laws

Introduction

This module aims to discuss more on the Laws in the Philippines involving coal. Factors
to consider in the selection of mining methods for the extraction of coal and Philippines’
coal characteristics are also included.
1. Definition of Underground Mining

After finishing this unit, you are expected to be able to learn more on the basics of
Underground Mining andidentify some Laws in the country involving coal.

Engage
Semirara Mining Corporation is the only large-scale coal producer in the Philippines and
is engaged in surface open cut mining of thermal coal from its Panian mine on Semirara
Island, in the Antique Province. Semirara Island covers an area of 55 square kilometers
and is located 350 km south of Manila.
Explore and Explain

A) FACTORS TO CONSIDER IN CHOOSING WHICH MINING METHOD TO USE IN

EXTRACTING A COAL SEAM.

1) Technological Factors.
 The number of seams;
 The thickness and steepness of each seam;
 The nature and thickness of the strata overlying the seams;
 The quality of the coal seams;
 The surface topography;
 The surface features;
 The transportation networks available.

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2) Economic Factors.
 Energy demand and its growth;
 The supply and cost of alternative sources of energy;
 Coal quality and the cost of coal preparation;
 The selling price of coal;
 Advancements in technology that affect the costs of production;
 Stripping ratio;
 Environmental legislation.

3) Social Factors.
 Prior history of mining in the area, if any;
 Ownership patterns;
 Availability of labor and local or regional government support.

B) PHILIPPINE COAL CHARACTERISTICS.

 Soft to dense (function of depth),

 Lignite to Bituminous type
 Mostly formed during the Miocene age (23 –25 million years ago)
 Occurs in moderately to highly disturbed areas
 Tapers and pinches out
 Heating value from 7,000 – 12,000 BTU/lb (3.89 x 10 3 – 6.67 x 103 cal/g).
 Developed in lagoonal to shallow marine environments
 Mostly sub-bituminous

Coal exploration is continuously being undertaken by the Department of Energy,

particularly in Mindanao.
PHILIPPINE COAL DISTRICTS
(Source: USGS-2006)
COAL RESERVE
COAL DISTRICTS COAL RANK
(Million Tons)
Samar-Leyte Lignite 27.0
Cotabato Sub-bituminous/Lignite 230.4

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 Quirino Sub-bituminous/Lignite 0.7
Cagayan-Isabela Sub-bituminous/Lignite 336.0
Sarangani Sub-bituminous/Lignite 120.0
Sultan-Kudarat Sub-bituminous/Lignite 300.3
Sorsogon Sub-bituminous 1.0
Negros Sub-bituminous 4.5
Davao Sub-bituminous 100.0
Batan Island Sub-bituminous 11.8
Masbate Sub-bituminous 2.5
Quezon-Polilio Sub-bituminous 6.0
Semirara Sub-bituminous/Bituminous 550.0
Surigao Sub-bituminous/Bituminous 209.0
Zamboanga-Sibugay
Sub-bituminous/Bituminous 45.0
(Malangas)
Cebu Sub-bituminous/Bituminous 165.0
Catanduanes Bituminous/Anthracite 1.2
Bukidnon Unknown 50.0
Maguindanao Unknown 108.0

C) PHILIPPINE LAWS/CIRCULARS ON COAL MINING

1) Act of 1902

 Approved on July 01, 1902

 Known as “The Philippine Bill of 1902”.
 Any person above the age of 21 years who are citizens of the US or of the
Philippine Islands or any qualified association of persons has the right to
enter any quality of vacant coal lands.
 Application for coal mining is filed with the provincial treasurer.

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  Maximum of 64 hectares for individual applicants, 128 hectares for
associations.
 Filing fee to be paid to the provincial treasurer or the collector of internal
revenue, as the case may be, of not less than twenty-five dollars per
hectare for such lands, where the same shall be situated more than fifteen
miles from any completed railroad or available harbor or navigable stream,
and not less than fifty dollars per hectare for such lands as shall be within
fifteen miles of such road, harbor, or stream.
 In case of conflicting claims upon coal lands where the improvements
shall be commenced after the date of the passage of this Act, priority of
possession and improvement, followed by proper filing and continued
good faith, shall determine the preference right to purchase.

2) Act No. 2719

 Approved on May 14, 1917

 Entitled: “An Act To Provide For The Leasing And Development Of Coal
Lands In The Philippine Islands.”
 Known as: “The Coal Land Act”.
 Coal-bearing lands of the public domain in the Philippine Islands shall not
be disposed of in any manner except as provided in this Act.
 Coal-bearing public land may be leased in blocks or tracks of not less than
four hundred (400) nor more than twelve hundred (1200) hectares each, in
such manner as may allow the economic exploitation of the coal. (Sec. 2)
 The lease may be granted to any person above the age of twenty-one (21)
years who is a citizen of the Philippine Islands or of the United States, or
to any association of such persons, or to any corporation organized under
the laws of the Philippine Islands. (Sec. 2)
 Leases shall be issued upon publication for periods not more than 50
years each, subject to renewal on such terms and conditions as may be
authorized by law at the time of such renewal. (Sec. 3)
 An annual tax of two thousand pesos (P 200.00) on each block or tract of
four hundred hectares, or fraction thereof, of coal lands owned by any
person, firm, association, or corporation, and a tax of four centavos per
ton of one thousand and sixteen kilos on each ton of coal extracted shall
be assessed. (Sec. 15)

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3) Act No. 3516

 Approved on January 08, 1929.

 Entitled: “An Act to Amend Section Three And To Repeal Section Fifteen
Of Act No. 2719.”
 Leases shall be issued upon publication for periods more than 50 years,
subject to renewal on such terms and conditions as may be authorized by
law at the time of such renewal.

4) Act No. 137

 Approved on November 07, 1936

 Entitled: “An Act to Provide for the Conservation, Disposition and
Development of Mineral Lands and Minerals.”
 The disposition of lands containing mineral fuels shall be governed by Act No.
2719.
 The granting of permit/s, lease/s, and concession/s for coal shall be limited to
citizens of the Philippines or to associations or corporations 60% of it is
owned by citizens of the Philippines.
 Permits, lease granted shall be for a term of 25-years, renewable.

5) R.A. No. 740

 Approved on June 18, 1952

 Entitled: “An Act to Amend Section One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven,
and Ten, To Insert Section 2-A in, and to Repeal Section Eight and Nine of
Act No. 2719.”
 The ownership and the right to the use of land for agricultural, industrial,
commercial, residential, or for any purpose other than mining does not include
the ownership of, nor the right to extract or utilize, the coal which may be
found on or under the surface.
 Leased area shall be in blocks or tracts of not less than fifty nor more than
twelve hundred hectares each (formerly 400 – 1200 hectares).
 An applicant may be granted a lease or leases on not more than six separate
blocks or tracts of coal land in any one province.

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  The aggregate area of all such blocks or tracks shall not be more than twelve
hundred hectares in the whole Philippines.
 The lease may be granted to any person twenty-one years of age or over who
is a citizen of the Philippines or to any association, partnership or corporation
organized under the laws of the Philippines:  Provided, That at least sixty per
centum of the capital of such corporation or association is owned and held at
all times by such citizens.
 Leases under the provisions of this Act shall be issued upon publication, in
the manner and subject to the rules prescribed by the Secretary of Agriculture
and Natural Resources, for a period of not more than twenty-five years,
renewable for another twenty-five years subject to such terms and conditions
as may be authorized by law at the time of such renewal.
 Any person, association, partnership, or corporation holding a lease of coal
lands under this Act may, at any time surrender such lease or any portion
thereof, and with the approval of the Secretary of Agriculture and Natural
Resources.
 Lessees holding under leases contiguous blocks or areas may consolidate
their said leases or holdings so as to include in a single holding a total of not
to exceed twelve hundred hectares, provided all lessees have at time of such
consolidation complied individually with all their obligations towards the
Government.
 In case a coal lease or revocable permit application covers in whole or in part
private land, the same shall be accompanied by the written authority of the
owner of the land.

6) P.D. No. 463

 Approved on May 17, 1974.

 Known as “The Mineral Resources Development Decree of 1974”.
 Provides that coal mining shall be governed by the special laws enacted for
the purpose.

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7) P.D. No. 972

 Approved on July 28, 1976. The IRR was approved on August 27, 1976.
 Known as: “The Coal Development Act of 1976”.
 All holders of coal permits, leases, locations, patents, mining grants or
concessions, applications and other existing rights granted by the government
for the exploration, development and exploitation of coal lands and/or the duly
authorized operators thereof shall register their permits, leases, locations,
patents, mining grants or concessions, applications and other rights with the
Energy Development Board within thirty (30) days from the date hereof.
 Failure to comply with the registration required herein shall be deemed to
constitute a waiver of rights and shall result in automatic cancellation or
termination of holder’s or operator’s right in any coal permit, lease, location,
patent, mining grant or concession, application and other rights.
 The Information Sheet and all accompanying annexes and exhibits shall be
filed with the offices of the Energy Development Board at the Philippine
National Petroleum Center, Merrit Road, Fort Bonifacio, Rizal or at the Energy
Development Board Cebu Office situated at barrio Opao, Mandaue City.
 Established the coal regions in the Philippines, namely:

1) Cagayan Region 9) Negros Region

2) Ilocos Region
3) Central Luzon Region
4) Bondoc Peninsula
Region
5) Bicol Region
6) Catanduanes Region
7) Samar-Leyte Region
8) Cebu Region
10) Panay Region including Semirara
Island
11) Mindoro Region
12) Agusan-Davao Region
13) Surigao Region
14) Cotabato Region
15) Zamboanga Region

 Requirements in filing applications:

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 a) Information Sheet for Coal Operators (EDB Form No. 11).
b) Proposed Coal Operating Contract Patterned after the Model
Contract (EDB Form No. 15).
c) A Comparative Analysis in tabulated form of items in the Coal
Operating Contract Proposal which deviate from the Model Contract. 
Reasons for the proposed changes should likewise be presented.
d) In cases of a corporation, a Certificate of Authority from the Board
of Directors of applicant Operator authorizing a designated
representatives/representative to negotiate the Coal Operating
Contract.  The certification must be executed under oath by the
Corporate Secretary and if executed abroad, must be properly
authenticated.  In cases of partnership or other forms of association, a
duly authorized representative/s shall negotiate the Coal Operating
Contract by the partners or members thereof.
e) Copies of all technical reports or works done on the proposed coal
contract areas, whenever available.
f) Payment of processing fee of one Peso (P1.00) per hectare but in no
case less than one-thousand Pesos (P1,000.00) for the proposed coal
contract area.

8) P.D. No. 1174

 Approved on July 27, 1977.

 Entitled: “Amending P.D. No. 972, Otherwise Known as the ‘Coal
Development Act of 1976’.”
 Amended are Sections 7e, 9, 10, and 11.
 Added Sections 16A, 16B, 16C, and 16D.
 Awards additional incentives to coal operators through the reimbursement of
all operating expenses not exceeding ninety percent (90%) of the gross
income after deducting all operating expenses.
 Likewise, the granting of timber and water rights within the coal contract area
and access to government reserved lands subject to applicable laws and
guidelines by the concerned agencies.
 Provides that the minimum expenditure requirement for underground areas
shall be One Million Pesos (P1,000,000.00) per block annually while for open

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 pit areas shall be Two Hundred Thousand Pesos (P200,000.00) per block
annually.

9) BED Cir. No. 1, Series of 1978

 Approved on January 03, 1978

 Known as the “Coal Mine Safety Rules and Regulations”.
 This Circular is a set rules and regulations promulgated pursuant to Section 9
of PD 972. Safety rules are prescribed for underground and surface mine
operations covering requirements for exit, escape ways, submission of mine
maps, ventilation, allowable limits of toxic and explosive gases. Control of
coal dust, ground support, rescue organization for emergency situations, fire
protection, handling of explosives, health and sanitation facilities and other
miscellaneous safety rules.
 All holders of coal operating contracts and special operating permits are
required to see to it that these rules and regulations are complied with. Non-
compliance with these rules and regulations shall constitute sufficient ground
for cancellation of al coal operating contract or special operating permit.

10) BED Cir. No. 81-11-10

 Approved on November 26, 1981.

 “Guidelines for Coal Operations in the Philippines”.
 This Circular sets out the rules and regulations to implement the provisions of
PD 972 as amended by PD 1174. The relevant health and safety provisions
of this Circular are under Section V and Section VII, to wit:

 Section V - Additional coal mines safety rules and regulations for strict
implementation by all holders of Coal Operating Contract.
 Section VII - Penalties for violations of the Coal Operating including Safety
Rules and Regulations.

11) BED Cir. No. 82-12-12

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  Approved on December 27, 1982
 To: All Holders of Coal Operating Contracts Under P.D. No. 972, as
Amended.
 Holders of coal operating contracts for exploration are hereby reminded that
they are allowed to extract coal from their coal operating contract areas only
such amount or volume as are reasonably necessary and incidental to the
exploration activities done on said areas, consistent with the work
commitment embodied in their respective work programs.
 Coal operators are not allowed to purchase or otherwise acquire by any other
means coal produces by persons or corporations who are without a coal
operating contract.
 Unless otherwise duly authorized by the Bureau of Energy Development
(BED), coal operators should sell their coal produce only to legitimate end
users and to persons or entities which are duly authorized by law or existing
rules and regulations to purchase coal.
 Coal operators who sell coal produced by another coal operating contractor
shall be responsible for the withholding and remittance of the government
share to the BED
 Every violation of, or omission under this Circular shall be punishable by a
fine of One Thousand Pesos (₱ 1,000.00), without prejudice to the
suspension or cancellation of the coal operating contract of the coal
contractor or operator concerned, in the discretion of the BED.

12) OEA Cir. No. 89-08-09

 Approved on August 22, 1989

 To: All Holders of Coal Operating Contracts Under P.D. No. 972, as
Amended.
 Defined the term sub-contracting as the act of transferring, assigning,
conveying or allowing another person(s) or entity(ies) to explore and develop
the area or any part thereof previously awarded by the Office of Energy
Affairs (OEA) to qualified coal mining operators.
 Sub-contracting shall exclude coal mining and other activities directly related
to production, and shall include the following, among others:
 Tunneling
 Trucking
 Shaft sinking
 Road construction

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  Diamond drilling
 Auger drilling
 Test pitting
 Trenching
 Stripping
 Dam construction
 Construction of infrastructure such as plants, buildings, etc.

 Holders of coal operating contracts shall not transfer, assign, convey, cede,
dispose, or subcontract the coal areas awarded to them without the prior
approval of the OEA (Section 15, PD No. 972).
 The coal operating contract holder shall be responsible for the safety and
technical efficiency of the coal mining operations of the sub-contractor and
the compliance of his work obligations and financial commitments under the
coal operating contract with the OEA.
 All existing sub-contract arrangements shall be submitted to the OEA not later
than September 30, 1989, for its approval.  All existing sub-contracts not duly
registered by this Office as of said date shall be deemed unauthorized and
therefore not valid and enforceable.  In addition to this, the coal operating
contract holder who sub-contracts his leased area without the prior approval
of the BED shall be held criminally liable under Chapter XIV of PD No. 463.
 All future sub-contracting shall be limited to those mentioned in this Circular
and shall be registered with the OEA before any sub-contracting work is
implemented, otherwise the cost incurred in the sub-contracting shall not be
recoverable as part of its operating expenses.

13) D.C. No. 2005-04-004

 Approved on April 20, 2005

 Entitled: “Investment Promotion and Contracting Rounds for Geothermal and
Coal Prospective Areas.”
 The Circular provided the procedures that govern the competitive system of
awarding geothermal service contracts and coal operating contracts.
 It provided that the Energy Resource Development Bureau (ERDB) shall
determine prospective areas within the Philippine territory for competitive
contracting rounds.
 Participants to the contracting rounds shall submit the following documents
for evaluation:

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  Work Program
 Draft of the proposed Geothermal Service Contract (GSC)/Coal
Operating Contract (COC), with comments, if any;
 The proposals for work program and minimum expenditure in
respect to the area or areas specified in the application.

 Financial Documentation
 Latest audited financial statement of the corporation and annual
reports for the last three (3) years;
 Duly filled-out information sheet of the corporation;
 Resume/Profile of the corporation/incorporators/offices;
 Particulars of the kinds of financial resources available to the
applicant including capital, credit facilities and guarantees so
available.
 Copy of latest income business tax returns duly stamped and
received by the Bureau of Internal Revenue, and duly validated
with the tax payment made thereon, if applicable.

 Legal Documentation
 Articles of Incorporation;
 By-laws of the Corporation;
 SEC Registration Certificate.

 Technical Documentation
 Particulars of the technical and industrial qualifications of the
applicant and his employees' working experience;
 Particulars of the technical and industrial resources available to
the applicant.

 Areas not awarded after each contracting round may be awarded to any
qualified applicant under such terms and conditions as the DOE Contract
Negotiating Panel (CNP) may recommend to the DOE Secretary.

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14) D.C. No. 2006-12-0014

 Approved on December 02, 2006

 Entitled: “Reiterating a Transparent and Competitive System of Awarding
Service/Operating Contracts for Coal, Geothermal and Petroleum Prospective
Areas, Repealing for this Purpose Department Circular No. 2003-05-005 and
Department Circular No. 2005-04-004.”
 The Energy Resource Development Bureau (ERDB) shall determine
prospective areas within the Philippine territory and its maritime zones
including the continental shelf for inclusion in the competitive public
contracting rounds.
 No applications for small-scale mining permit for coal operations shall be
entertained in the offered areas until after service/operating contracts have
been awarded.
 The definition and delineation of prospective coal, geothermal and petroleum
contract areas shall be in accordance with the provisions of applicable
government laws, rules and existing procedures such as the National
Integrated Protected Areas System (NIPAS) Law and the Indigenous
People’s Right Act (IPRA), among others.

15) D.C. No. 2009-04-0004

 Approved April 02, 2009

 Entitled: “Reiterating a Transparent and Competitive System of Awarding
Service/Operating Contracts for Coal, Geothermal and Petroleum Prospective
Areas Repealing for this Purpose Department Circular No. 2006-12-0014.”
 Frontier Areas. Privately identified coal, geothermal and petroleum frontier
areas with no available technical data may be allowed to be offered through
negotiated contracts

16) D.C. No. DC 2010-03-0005

 Approved March 24, 2010

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  Entitled: “Providing Additional Guidelines for a Transparent and Competitive
System of Awarding Service/Operating Contracts for Coal and Petroleum
Prospective Areas Amending for this Purpose DC 2006-12-0014.”
 The Circular provided Guidelines for Public Contracting by Publication.
 The Circular provided specific guidelines for Direct Negotiation:
Frontier areas – privately identified coal and petroleum frontier areas
with no available technical data maybe allowed to be offered through
negotiated contracts.
When no proposal is received during the conduct of PECR or no one
among the applicants was able to meet the minimum requirements
after the evaluation.
When no proposal other than the proposal by the qualified nominee is
received after the publication.

17) D.C. No. DC 2011-12-0010

 Approved December 01, 2011

 Entitled: “Reiterating a Transparent and Competitive System of Awarding
Service and Operating Contracts for Petroleum and Coal Prospective
Areas Repealing for this Purpose Department Circular Nos. DC 2009-04-
0004 and DC 2010-03-0005, and Department Order No. 2010-06-0011.”
 The Circular shall apply to the determination of the legal, technical and
financial qualifications of applicants, the evaluation of their proposals, and
the award of corresponding service and operating contracts for petroleum
and coal resources.
 It created the Review and Evaluation Committee (REC) to carry out the
responsibilities set forth in this Circular.

18) D.C. No. 2014-02-0005

 Issued on January 24, 2014

 A Circular for the 5th round of the Philippine Energy Contracting Round
(PECR-5) as part of the continuing thrust to ensure energy security in the
country.

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  The PECR-5 Circular reiterates the government's promotion of the
exploration, development, and production of the country's indigenous
petroleum and coal resources through a transparent and competitive system
for awarding service and operating contracts with local and foreign investors.

 The Circular also forms the Review and Evaluation Committee (REC), which
shall identify the prospective petroleum and coal areas within the Philippine
territory and is likewise tasked to examine, evaluate, and review the
qualifications of project applicants based on their work program, legal,
technical, and financial qualifications.
 The PECR-5 offers eleven (11) areas for petroleum exploration mostly
located in Luzon, and fifteen (15) areas for coal exploration, largely
concentrated in Mindanao, as follows:

 For Petroleum - Area 1 Southeast Luzon Basin; Areas 2 & 3 Masbate-

Iloilo Basin; Areas 4 & 5 Northeast Palawan Basin; Area 6 Southeast
Palawan Basin; Area 7 West Palawan Basin; Areas 8, 9, 10, & 11
West Luzon Basin.

 For coal - Area 1 Carmen, Lanuza &Tandag, Surigao del Sur

(Surigao); Area 2 Tandag &Tago, Surigao del Sur (Surigao); Area 3
Tandag, Tago & San Miguel, Surigao del Sur (Surigao); Area 4 Butuan
City, Agusan del Norte & Sibagat, Agusan del Sur (Agusan-Davao);
Area 5 Butuan City, Agusan del Norte & Sibagat, Agusan del Sur
(Agusan-Davao); Area 6 Bunawan, Agusan del Sur (Agusan-Davao);
Area 7 Bunawan & Trento, Agusan del Sur (Agusan-Davao); Area 8
Bunawan & Trento, Agusan del Sur and Bislig City, Surigao del Sur
(Surigao & Agusan-Davao); Area 9 Lingig & Bislig City, Surigao del
Sur (Surigao); Area 10 Godod, Zamboanga del Norte and Kabasalan,
Zamboanga Sibugay (Zamboanga); Area 11 Godod, Zamboanga del
Norte and Kabasalan, Zamboanga Sibugay (Zamboanga); Area 12
Baliguian & Siocon, Zamboanga del Norte (Zamboanga); Area 13
Alicia, Imelda & Payao, Zamboanga Sibugay (Zamboanga); Area 14
Imelda, Malangas, Alicia & Payao, Zamboanga Sibugay (Zamboanga);
Area 15 Maitum, Sarangani (Cotabato-Sarangani).

D) THE PHILIPPINE COAL CONRACT SYSTEM

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Coal operation in the Philippines is governed by P.D. No. 972, or the Coal Development
Act of the Philippines, as amended by P.D. No. 1174, providing for the active and
systematic exploration, exploitation, development, disposition and utilization of
Philippine coal resources. These decrees introduced “The Philippine Coal Service
Contract System” and established the appropriate guidelines for coal operations. Under
these guidelines, the government retains ownership of Philippine coal resource while
the operator, through the contract system, is assigned the right to explore, develop,
exploit and market the coal based on some pre-agreed conditions for a specific period
of time.

There are three (3) types of coal contracts (pursuant to PD 972 dated 27 July 1976 as
amended by PD 1174 dated 27 July 1977):

a) Coal Operating Contract (COC) for Exploration

 A COC provides for exploration of the contract area for two (2) years
extendible for another two (2) years provided that the contract has not
been in default of its exploration work commitments or the company
commits a work obligation that is acceptable to the DOE.
 The operator should perform all coal operations and provide all the
necessary services, technology and financing based on the approved
work program.
 If coal of commercial quantity is found during Exploration Phase, the
operator must then delineate the deposit which will constitute a
development and production area and seek conversion to development
and production phase of the contract.
 Financial Criteria
Minimum requirement
 Underground areas — ₱ 1,000,000.00/block/annum
 Open-pittable areas — ₱ 200,000/block/annum
 Technical Criteria

Minimum number of blocks – 3

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 Employment of a full-time licensed geologist and/or Mining
Engineer

Minimum work commitments in drill-hole equivalent

 Underground area - 9,000 ft/block/annum
 Open-pittable areas - 3,000 ft/block/annum

 Contract Duration/Extension

Two (2) years, extendible to another 2 years if the contractor,

provided:
1. Has not been in default in its exploration work and other
obligations
2. Has submitted an acceptable work program for the
extension
 Forms
Covering Information Sheet

Criteria for Evaluation of Bids/Proposal

Contracting Round Application Checklist

b) Coal Operating Contract (COC) for Development/Production

 At the development and production stage, the following criteria must be

complied with:

Financial criteria require the applicant to have a working capital

amounting to at least 150% of the first year financial
commitment of the work program.

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 Technical criteria require the applicant to submit a feasibility
study for the proposed coal operations and a five (5) year work
program acceptable to DOE. The company must also employ
competent technical personnel (licensed mining engineer and
safety engineer) to carry out the work program.

 The contract is valid from ten (10) to twenty (20) years, renewable for a
series of three (3) years but not exceeding twelve (12) years. The
operator must perform all coal operations in accordance with good
mining practices and provide all necessary services, technology and
financing based on the approved work program.
 Boundary survey should be conducted within one (1) year of contract
approval.
 Acquisition of the Environmental Compliance Certificate (ECC) is part
of the contractor’s commitment for the first year of the contract period.

 Privileges of the contractor include the following:

Exemption from payment of all taxes except income tax. This

covers exemption from payment of tariff and duties and
compensating tax on importation of machinery, equipment,
spare parts and materials for coal operations.
Accelerated depreciation of fixed assets.
Availment of the services of alien technical and specialized
personnel.
Recovery of operating expenses from the proceeds of coal
production.

c) Small-scale Coal Mining Permit (SSCMP)

 The program is provided for by Circular No. 87-03-001 which

enumerates the guidelines for small scale mining of marginal coal
deposits that are otherwise not applicable for COCs. To qualify for a
SSCMP, one must be a Filipino citizen, legal age and resident of the
area where the coal deposit is located. An applicant should have a

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 minimum working capital of ten (10) thousand Philippine pesos
(P10,000.00) in cash or in kind. SSCMPs cover a maximum area of
five (5) hectares which geological reserves of 50,000 metric tons.
 Under the existing guidelines, SSCMPs should sell its coal production
to a supervising coal operator which should be a valid holder of an
existing COC should its operations be within a COC area or near a
COC area. If the COC contractor allows operation within his area but
refuses to supervise the SSCM operation for any reason, or there is no
COC in the vicinity that can supervise the SSCM operation, then the
DOE can oversee the independent SSCM operation.
 Obligation of the Permittee: To remit 3% of the gross sale to the
government.

Highlights of the Contract:

 The right of ingress to and egress from the COC area.

 Contract Term:

Exploration - Two (2) years initial + two (2) years extension

Development/Production – Ten (10) – twenty (20) years + series ofthree
(3) years extension not to exceed 12 years

 Cost Recovery - 90% of Gross Income

 Taxes – Exempted from National Taxes except Income Tax

 Profit Share: Government – 30% of net proceeds

Contractor – 70% of net proceeds
 Tax Exemption – For imported equipment, materials and spare parts.

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 Figure – 1. Map Showing the Coal Areas Offered for the 2009 PECR.

E) HISTORY OF PHILIPPINE ENERGY CONTRACTING ROUND

 PECR is a mechanism whereby the government bids out areas with potential
indigenous energy resources for exploration and possible development and
production. Proposals are solicited from interested parties and evaluated based
on established criteria to determine the qualifications of the bidder. Negotiations
may follow for the details of the contract with the winning bidder.
 Scheme started with the Petroleum Contracting Round undertaken with the
assistance of Norway in 2003.
 Geothermal Contracting Round followed on March 11, 2004.
 PECR for petroleum, COAL and geothermal prospects followed on August 31,
2005.

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F) CLEAN COAL POLICY OF THE PHILIPPINES

a) Section 9 (d) of PD No. 972, as amended, provides that:

“The Contractor shall operate the area on behalf of the Government in

accordance with good coal practices using modern methods appropriate for the
geological conditions of the area to enable maximum economic production of
coal, avoiding hazards to life, health and property, avoiding pollution of air, land
and waters, and pursuant to an efficient and economic program of operation;”

b) PD No. 1151.

 Required the Government and all power plant/mining operators and

industrial end-users to undertake detailed environmental impact
assessments of their operational activities. It requires provision of
remedial measures to address these impacts particularly
combustion/greenhouse gas emissions associated with coal utilization.
 Section 38b of the Code enjoined all power plant operators and industrial
end-users alike to provide pollution control devices to ensure the health
and well being of the surrounding community.
 Section 56 of the Code provides tax exemptions for pollution control
equipment, spare parts, devices and accessories and tax credits for the
purchase of domestic pollution control technologies and expenses
incurred in research of such technologies by coal-fired power plant
operators, industrial end-users and mine contractors who will install and
utilize pollution control in their facilities.
 Section 57 provides technical assistance/foreign grants for study, design
and construction of environmental facilities.

c) DENR Administrative Order No. 14, Series of 1993. Section 60a(2) requires that
sulfur content of fossil fuel for stationary sources, i.e. power and industrial plants, should
not exceed one (1) percent else install appropriate control equipment.

d) R.A. No. 8749 (Clean Air Act of 1999). Section 19 Article 2 of the Act, requires all
coal-fired power plant operators and coal industrial end-users to find ways and means
to mitigate and control emissions related to coal utilization through the application of

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market-based instruments and available technologies. It sets standards on SOX and
NOX emissions and the so-called greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming.

Figure – 2. Map Showing the Coal Basins of the Philippines.

Elaborate:

Exercise:
1. How does the factors mentioned above affect the decision making in choosing the
mining method to be employed in the extraction of coal?
Evaluate:

Refer to your module.

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 MODULE 8
Elective 1(Coal Mining) – Coal Gas

Introduction

This module aims to discuss the Coal Gas Types found in a Coal Mine particularly the
Coal Bed Methane or the Coal Seam Methane as to where it was originated and how it
was being used for energy production in a mine.
1. Definition

After finishing this unit, you are expected to be able to determine the uses of methane
and learn how to deal with methane when you’ll be working soon in a coal mine.

Engage
Methane is the major component of gases in coal, comprising 80% – 90% or more of
the total gas volume. The balance is made up of ethane, propane, butane, carbon
dioxide, hydrogen, oxygen, and argon.
Explore and Explain

I) COAL GAS TYPES:

Gases derived from coal come in four (4) key forms:

1) Coal Bed Methane (CBM) or Coal Seam Methane (CSM) - Coal Bed Methane
(CBM) or Coal Seam Methane (CSM) is primary coal seam gas collected from
un-mined coal beds. These coal seams are drilled down into, releasing the
associated gas which is extracted and can be used to generate electricity.  CBM
consists of over 90% methane and can be harvested independently of coal
mining in some locations. The gas composition is normally stable, meaning that
the gas can be fed directly into the natural gas network or a gas engine.

Coalbed methane (CBM) is a generic term for the methane‐rich gas naturally
occurring in coal seams typically comprising 80% to 95% methane with lower
proportions of ethane, propane, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide. In common
international use, this term refers to methane recovered from un‐mined coal
seams using surface boreholes.

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2) Coal Mine Methane (CMM) or Working Mine Methane (WMM) - Coal mine
methane (CMM) is a type of gas present in active, working mine sites. This gas is
extracted from the air in the coal mine helping improve safety and preventing
uncontrolled release of methane to atmosphere. CMM is a mixture of methane
and air released during the process of coal mining and must be vented for safety
reasons. Methane has significant effects as a greenhouse gas being 21 times
higher than that of carbon dioxide, therefore its capture and use in gas engines
has significant environmental benefits. CMM typically has an oxygen content
of 5 - 12%. The methane content ranges from 25 - 60%. However, the
methane/air proportion can change suddenly, thus complicating its use in gas
engines.

Coal mine methane (CMM) is a gas captured at a working coal mine by

underground methane drainage techniques. The gas consists of a mixture of
methane and other hydrocarbons and water vapor. It is often diluted with air and
associated oxidation products due to unavoidable leakage of air into the gas
drainage boreholes or galleries through mining induced fractures and also due to
air leakage at imperfect joints in underground pipeline systems. Any gas
captured underground, whether drained in advance of or after mining, and any
gas drained from surface goaf wells is included in this definition. Pre‐mining
drained CMM can be of high purity.

3) Abandoned Mine Methane (AMM) - Even after coal mines are shut down, coal
mine gas continues to be released. Coal mine gas from abandoned mines
typically contains no oxygen, and its composition changes slowly. The methane
content ranges from 60 - 80%.

4) Syngas from Underground Coal Gasification (UCG) - Underground Coal

Gasification is an industrial process by which coal is gasified in situ. This process
converts the physical coal to a product gas (a type of synthetic/syngas).

Syngas is created by the gasification or pyrolysis of carbonaceous materials.

Gasification involves subjecting these materials to high temperatures, in the
controlled presence of oxygen with only limited combustion to provide thermal
energy to sustain the reaction. Gasification can occur in man-made vessels, or
alternatively could be conducted in-situ as in underground coal gasification
(UCG). Where the fuel to the gasifier is of recent biological origin, such as wood
or organic waste, the gas produced by the gasifier is considered to be a

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 renewable fuel and the power produced by its combustion is renewable. When
the fuel to the gasifier is a waste stream, its conversion to power in this manner
has the combined benefit of the conversion of this waste into useful products.

Syngas, also known as synthesis gas, synthetic gas or producer gas, can be
produced from a variety of different materials that contain carbon. These can
include biomass (wood gas), plastics, coal and municipal waste or similar
materials.

Figure – 1. Schematic of a Coal Seam Methane Cogeneration.

II) OVERVIEW ON COALBED METHANE (CBM)

A) Definition of Terms.

1) Air lock – An arrangement of doors that allows passage from one part of a mine
ventilation circuit to another without causing a short‐circuit.
2) Auxiliary ventilation – Proportion of main ventilating current directed to the face
of a blind heading (i.e., entry) by means of an auxiliary fan and ducting.
3) Back‐return – A temporary ventilation arrangement formed at the return end of a
U‐ventilated longwall to divert a proportion of the air behind the face to allow

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 access for gas drainage drilling and prevent high concentration goaf gases
encroaching on the face end.
4) Bleeder shaft – a vertical shaft through which gas‐laden air from working
districts is discharged.
5) Blind heading – a development roadway with a single entry that requires
auxiliary ventilation.
6) Bord‐and‐pillar (room‐and‐pillar) – a method of mining in which coal is
extracted from a series of headings, which are then interlinked leaving un‐mined
coal pillars to support the roof.
7) Capture (drainage) efficiency – the proportion of methane (by volume)
captured in a methane drainage system relative to the total quantity of gas
liberated.
8) Coal front gas – gas released from the working seam coalface by the action of
the coal‐cutting machine.
9) Extraneous gas – gas emissions other than coal front gas.
10)Firedamp – alternative term for CMM.
11)Gas drainage – methods for capturing the naturally occurring gas in coal seams
to prevent it entering mine airways. The gas can be removed from coal seams in
advance of mining using pre‐drainage techniques and from coal seams disturbed
by the extraction process using post‐drainage techniques. It is often referred to
as Methane drainage if methane is the main gas component target to be
captured.
12)Goaf (United States: gob) – broken, permeable ground where coal has been
extracted by longwall coal mining and the roof has been allowed to collapse, thus
fracturing and de‐stressing strata above and, to a lesser extent, below the seam
being worked. The term gob is generally used in the United States; elsewhere,
goaf is generally used.
13)Methane drainage – See Gas drainage.
14)Natural gas – typically refers to gas extracted from geological strata other than
coal seams (i.e., from “conventional” gas reserves). The gas could be composed
mostly of methane and may have originally migrated from coal seam sources.
15)Pre‐drainage (pre‐mine drainage) – extraction of gas from coal ahead of
mining.
18)Post‐drainage (post‐mine drainage) – extraction of gas released as a
consequence of mining.

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 16)Respirable dust – Microscopic particles of dust which can enter and damage the
human lung.
17)Specific methane emission – It is the total amount of gas released from the
mine divided by the total amount of coal mined. Specific emission values are
much higher than the gas content of the coal because of methane emission from
coal that is not mined (ribs and pillars) and methane emission from strata
adjacent to the mined coalbed.
18)Ventilation air methane (VAM) – Methane emitted from coal seams that enters
the ventilation air and is exhausted from the ventilation shaft at a low
concentration, typically in the range of 0.1% to 1.0% by volume.

B) Origin of Coalbed Methane (CBM). Coal seams form over millions of years by the
biochemical decay and metamorphic transformation of plant materials. This
coalification process produces large quantities of byproduct gases, such as methane
and carbon dioxide. The amount of these byproducts increases with the rank of coal.
It is the highest for anthracite, where for every ton of coal nearly 1,900 lb. of water,
2,420 lb. (20,000 ft3) of carbon dioxide, and 1,186 lb. (27,000 ft3) of methane are
produced [Hargraves 1973]. Most of these gases escape to the atmosphere during
the coalification process, but a small fraction is retained in the coal. The amount of
gas retained in the coal depends on a number of factors, such as the rank of coal,
the depth of burial, the type of rock in the immediate roof and floor, local geologic
anomalies, and the tectonic pressures and temperatures prevalent at that time. The
gases are contained under pressure and mainly adsorbed on the surface of the coal
matrix, but a small fraction of gases is also present in the fracture network of the
coal.
Methane is released into each mine airway from the coal seam as mining proceeds.
Large volumes of air, sometimes as much as 20 tons of air for each ton of coal
mined, is circulated constantly to dilute and carry methane away from coal mines.
Methane is a colorless, odorless, combustible gas that forms an explosive mixture
with mine air in the concentration range of 5% – 15% by volume. The maximum
concentration of methane in mine air is restricted by law to 1% – 1.25% in all major
coal-producing countries. Nevertheless, methane-air explosions are quite common
even today.

Coal has been mined throughout the world for hundreds of years, and the history of
coal mining is replete with mine explosions and consequent loss of lives. Even
today, 60 countries around the world mine about 5 billion tons of coal annually with
more than 10,000 fatalities per year. Before 1950, when coal seam degasification
was generally unknown and ventilation was the only method of methane control,

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 mine explosions in the United States were much more disastrous with a very high
number of fatalities. To mitigate this problem, in many instances, mine ventilation
can be supplemented by coal seam degasification prior to mining and even after
mining.

C) Reservoir Properties of Coal Seams. Coal seam degasification techniques to be

used in a mine depend on the reservoir properties of the coal seams being mined.
Good methane control planning depends on accurate information on the reservoir
properties of the coal seam and the total gas emission space created by the mining
process. Reservoir properties governing the emission of methane from coal seams
can be divided into two groups:

1) Properties that determine the capacity of the seam for total gas production,
e.g., adsorbed gas and porosity, and
2) Properties that determine the rate of gas flow, e.g., permeability, reservoir
pressure, and diffusivity of coal. The reservoir properties are highly
dependent on the depth and rank of the coal seam. The most important of
these properties is the seam gas content.

Seam gas content. Based on their gas contents, coal seams can be classified as
mildly gassy, moderately gassy, and highly gassy, as shown in Table – 1.

Table – 1. Gassiness of Coal Seams.

1 GAS CONTENT OF
CATEGORY DEPTH, FT.
COAL, Ft3/Ton
Mildly gassy < 600 < 100
Moderately gassy 600 – 1,200 100 – 300
Highly gassy 1,200 – 3,000 300 – 700
1
Depth figures are for high-volatile bituminous coals.

By definition, seam gas content is the amount of gas contained in a ton of coal. It
includes both adsorbed gases and gases in the fracture matrix. Formerly, gas

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 content of a coal seam or the gassiness of a coal seam was measured by the
specific emission of methane from the mine, expressed as the volume of methane
emitted from the mine per ton of coal produced. Although a rough correlation exists
between specific emission and actual gas content of coal, it is not very reliable nor
can it be used effectively for forecasting. Today, gas content of a coal seam is best
measured directly [Diamond and Schatzel 1998]. If the reservoir pressure is known,
an indirect estimate of gas content can also be obtained by Langmuir’s equation
[Langmuir 1918] for monolayer adsorption:

V = Vm BP / (1+ BP)

where: V is the estimated gas content of coal

Vm is the volume of gas for full saturation of coal
B is a characteristic constant of the coal seam
P is the reservoir pressure

For U.S. coalbeds, the reservoir pressure is roughly correlated with the depth of the
coal seam [Thakur and Davis 1977] and is estimated at 0.303 psi/ft., or roughly 70%
of the hydrostatic head.
Since coal seams and gas in coal are formed together, it is a misnomer to call a coal
seam nongassy. All coal seams are gassy by definition, but they vary in their degree
of gassiness, i.e., gas content per ton of coal. The depth of a coal seam and its rank
are good indicators of its gassiness, but direct measurement of gas content is highly
recommended.

D) Thresholds for Coal Seam Degasification. Generally, it is economically feasible to

handle specific methane emissions from a mine up to 1,000 ft 3/ton with a well-
designed ventilation system. At higher specific emission rates, a stage is reached
where ventilation cost becomes excessive or it becomes impossible to stay within
statutory methane limits with mine ventilation alone. However, with a well-planned
methane drainage system and a well-designed ventilation system, even highly gassy
mines with specific methane emissions in excess of 4,000 ft 3/ton can be safely
operated.

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 Figure – 2. Generalized Optimum Point for Methane
Drainage, shown here at 70%.

In some mines, there is often a choice regarding how much methane should be
drained and how much should be handled by mine ventilation air. Figure – 2 shows
a generalized optimum point. The actual optimum point depends on a number of
factors, including the rate of mining, size of longwall panel, specific methane
emission, and cost of ventilation and methane drainage.

Advantages of coal seam degasification can be summarized as follows:

 Reduced methane concentrations in the mine air, leading to improved

safety.
 Reduced air requirements and corresponding savings in ventilation costs.
 Faster advance of development headings and economy in the number of
airways.
 Improved coal productivity.
 Additional revenue from the sale of coal mine methane.
 Additional uses of degasification boreholes, such as water infusion to
control respirable dust.
 Advance exploration of coal seams to locate geological anomalies in the
longwall panel.

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Methane drainage must be performed when the ventilation air cannot dilute the
methane emissions in the mine to a level below the statutory limits.

E) Methane Emissions in Mines. Underground mining is done in two phases: (1)

development and (2) pillar extraction. Development work involves the driving of a
network of tunnels (entries) into the coal seam to create a large number of pillars or
longwall panels to be mined later. These openings are usually done with a
continuous mining machine. This machine cuts and loads coal into a shuttle car,
which in turn hauls and dumps the coal onto a moving belt. The coal travels out of
mines on a series of belts and is finally brought to the surface via a slope or shaft.

All methane produced during the development phase of mining is from the coal
seam being mined. Methane is emitted at the working face as well as in the
previously developed areas. All emitted methane is mixed with ventilation air, diluted
to safe levels, and discharged on the surface. Methane drainage during or prior to
development becomes necessary if the development headings will experience a
high rate of methane emissions. This is called pre-mining methane drainage.
Horizontal drilling of longwall panels prior to mining also falls into this category.

Figure – 3. Limits of the Gas Emission Space.

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 The second phase of underground mining involves complete or partial extraction of
the coal pillars. Smaller pillars are extracted by continuous mining machines by
splitting them into even smaller pillars. Larger panels of coal (up to 1,000 ft. by
10,000 ft. or more) are extracted by the longwall method of mining. In either case,
the mined coal produces methane. In addition, extracting these pillars or longwall
panels causes the overlying strata to subside and the underlying strata to heave.
The ventilated mine workings constitute a natural pressure sink, into which methane
flows from the entire disturbed area, or what is known as the gas emission space.
Figure –3 shows the limits of the gas emission space as suggested by four different
authors [Lidin 1961; Thakur 1981; Winter 1975; Gunther and Bélin 1967]. The gas
emission space may extend to 270 ft. below the coal seam being mined and
approximately 1,000 ft. above it.

The gob methane emission rate mainly depends on the rate of longwall advance, the
geology, the size of the longwall panel, and the gas content and thickness of any
coalseams in the gas emission space.

F) Methane Drainage Techniques. Various methane drainage techniques are used to

capture the gas from the gob so that the mine ventilation air does not have to handle
all of it. Depending on the magnitude of the problem, methane drainage can be
performed prior to mining, known as pre-mining methane drainage (see Figure –
5A). Methane drainage can also be performed during mining and after the area is
completely mined out and sealed. These two stages are generally grouped together
as post-mining methane drainage.

Pre-mining methane drainage. Techniques for pre-mining drainage can be broadly

classifiedinto four categories:

1. Horizontal in-seam boreholes

2. In-mine vertical or inclined (cross-measure) boreholes in the roof and floor
3. Vertical wells that have been hydraulically fractured (so-called frac wells)
4. Short-radius horizontal boreholes drilled from surface

1) Horizontal in-seam boreholes: Early work in pre-mining methane drainage was

done with short horizontal in-seam boreholes [Spindler and Poundstone 1960].
Figure –4 shows the two most commonly used variations of degasification with
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 in-seam horizontal boreholes. Success of the technique is predicated on good
coalbed permeability (≥5 mD). The horizontal drilling technique and its
application to degas coal seams are well-documented in published literature
[Thakur and Davis 1977; Thakur and Poundstone 1980; Thakur et al. 1988]. In
highly permeable coal seams, e.g., the Pittsburgh Seam of the Appalachian
Basin, nearly 50% of the in situ gas can be removed by this technique prior to
mining. The major drawback of this technique is that only about 6 months to a
year - the time between development and longwall extraction - is available for
degasification.

Figure – 4. Longwall Panel Methane Drainage.

2) In-mine inclined or vertical boreholes: Short vertical or long inclined boreholes

have been drilled from an existing mine (or roadways expressively driven for this
purpose) to intersect other coal seams in the gas emission space, allowing for
the seams to be degassed prior to mining. Again, success depends on high
permeability. A far better way to degas these coal seams lying in close proximity
to each other is to use vertical frac wells.

3) Vertical frac wells: Vertical frac wells are ideally suited to highly gassy, deep, low
permeability coal seams where it takes several years prior to mining to
adequately degas the coal. These wells are drilled from the surface on a grid
pattern over the entire property or only on longwall panels to intersect the coal
seam to be mined in the future.

Vertical wells drilled into the coal seam seldom produce measurable amounts of
gas without hydraulic stimulation. High-pressure water (or other fluids) with sand
are pumped into the coal seam to create fractures (Figure –5). The fluid (water)
is then pumped out, but the sand remains, keeping the fractures open for gas to
escape to the well bore. Under ideal conditions, if the vertical frac wells are

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drilled more than 5–10 years in advance of mining, 60%–70% of the methane in
the coal seam can be removed prior to mining.

Vertical frac wells have been very successful in the Appalachian and San Juan
Coal Basins of the United States. They have also been attempted in the United
Kingdom, Germany, Poland, China, and Australia, but met with only limited
success. Major reasons for the lack of success abroad are (1) cost and (2) lack
of sufficient permeability, which are further explained below.

a) The cost of drilling and hydrofracing a well in Europe and Australia is

typically three times the cost in the United States. The cost of permitting
and site preparation is also higher. In many countries, the drilling and
hydrofracing equipment are not conveniently available.

Figure – 5. Pre-mining Methane Drainage from Surface.

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 Figure – 5A. Schematic of Pre-Mine Drainage from Lateral Wells
Drilled from the Surface.
b) Lower permeability (<1 mD) of many European, Asian, and Australian coal
seams contributes to the limited success of frac wells. Even well-designed
and well-executed frac jobs in the Bowen Basin of Australia were
ineffective. A solution to this problem may lie in “gas flooding,” i.e.,
injection of an inert gas such as nitrogen or carbon dioxide to drive
methane out [Puri and Yee 1990]. Increased methane production is,
however, obtained with an increase in the inert gas content of the
produced gas. This may affect the marketing of produced gas adversely.

4) Short-radius horizontal boreholes: In coal seams with high permeability, methane

drainage can be performed with boreholes drilled vertically from the surface and
then turned through a short radius to intersect the coal seam horizontally. The
horizontal extension can be up to 3,000 ft. Methane then flows from the coal
seam under its own pressure, as shown in Figure – 5. The technique is well-
proven in oil fields, but it has found a very limited application in coal mines for
two reasons:

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 a) Cost: A short-radius borehole drilled vertically to a depth of 1,000 ft. and
horizontally extended to 3,000 ft. may cost up to $500,000.

b) Water accumulation in the horizontal borehole: As can be seen in Figure

– 5, any water accumulation in the horizontal leg of the borehole will
seriously inhibit gas production. A solution may lie in deepening the
vertical leg below the coal seam being drilled and installing a dewatering
pump in it, as is commonly done for vertical frac wells.

Of the above four techniques, vertical frac wells have been the most effective
option for pre-mining degasification of most coal seams. Vertical frac wells also
allow access to all coal seams in the gas emission space for pre-drainage. Such
access becomes necessary in highly gassy mines in order to achieve high
productivity. The only possible exception is for shallower, very permeable coal
seams where in-mine drilling is sufficient and more economical. In shallow
formations, the fracture system created by hydrofracing is like a horizontal
pancake and is not very productive because the fracture system does not extend
far enough from the borehole. Strong roof and floor are also necessary to contain
the fracture system within the coal seam.

Postmining methane drainage. Techniques for post-mining drainage can be

broadly classified into four categories:

1. The packed cavity method and its variants

2. The cross-measure borehole method
3. The superjacent method
4. The vertical gob well method

1) Packed cavity method and its variants: This technique is used mainly in Russian
coal mines. Early methods of methane control consisted of simply isolating the
worked-out area in the mine using packed walls, partial or complete stowing, and
plastic sheets or massive stoppings. A network of pipeline that passed through
these isolation barriers was laid in the gob, and methane was drained using
vacuum pumps. Lidin [1961] reviewed several variants of this technique. Figures
– 6 and 7 show typical layouts for caving and partially stowed longwall gobs.

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 In Figure – 6 the gate roads are protected by a packed wall against the gob.
Pipelines are laid through the packed wall to reach nearly the center line of the
gob, then manifolded to a larger diameter pipe in the gate road. In Figure –7, the
partially stowed longwall gob, cavities are purposely left between alternate packs.
The overlying strata in the cavity area crack and provide a channel for gas to flow
into these packed cavities. Pipelines are laid to connect the cavity with methane
drainage mains. Methane extraction is usually done under suction.

2) Cross-measure borehole method: This is by far the most popular method of

methane control on European longwall faces. Figure – 8 shows a typical layout
for a retreating longwall face. Boreholes 2–4 inches in diameter and about 80 ft.
apart are drilled from the top gate to a depth of 60–500 ft.

The angle of these boreholes with respect to horizon varies from 20° to 50°, while
the axis of the borehole is inclined to the longwall axis at 15° to 30°. At least one
hole in the roof is drilled at each site, but several boreholes in the roof and floor
can be drilled at varying inclinations depending on the degree of gassiness.
These holes are then manifolded to a larger pipeline system, and gas is
withdrawn using a vacuum pump. Vacuum pressures vary from 4 to 120 inch
w.g. (water gauge).

The amount of methane captured by the drainage system, expressed as a

percentage of total methane emission in the section, varies from 30% to 70%.
Some typical data for U.K. and U.S. mines are given by Kimmins [1971] and
Thakur et al. [1983], respectively, and are shown in Table 6–3.

The cross-measure borehole method is generally more successful for advancing

longwall panels than for retreat faces. The flow from individual boreholes is
typically 20 ft3/min., but can occasionally reach 100 ft 3/min. for deeper holes.
Sealing of the casing at the collar of the borehole is very important and is usually
done with quick-setting cement. Sometimes a liner (a pipe of smaller diameter
than the borehole) is inserted in the borehole and sealed at the collar to preserve
the production from the borehole even when it is sheared by rock movements.

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Figure – 6. Methane Drainage by the Packed Cavity Method.

Figure – 7. Partially Filled Langwall Gob.

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3) Superjacent method: This method was used mainly for retreating longwall faces
in highly gassy seams in French mines. Figure – 9 shows a typical layout. A
roadway is driven 70 – 120 ft. above the longwall face, preferably in an
unworkable coal seam. The roadway is sealed, and vacuum pressures up to 120
inch w.g. are applied. To improve the flow of gas, inclined boreholes in the roof
and floor are drilled to intersect with other gassy coalbeds. If the mining scheme
proceeds from the top to the bottom seams in a basin, the entries in a working
mine can be used to drain coal seams at lower levels. Methane flow from these
entries is high, averaging 700 – 1,000 ft 3/min for highly gassy seams. Nearly 50%
of total emissions have been captured using this method.

Figure – 8. Methane Drainage with Cross-Measure Boreholes.

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 Figure – 9. Methane Drainage by the Superjacent Method.

4) Vertical gob well method: This technique, most commonly used in longwall
mining in the United States, is relatively new and differs from European systems
in several ways. U.S. coal seams are generally thin, shallow, and relatively more
permeable. Typically, only one seam is mined in a given area and retreat
longwall mining is the only method being practiced at present. Methane emission
rates from gobs in various coal basins vary depending on the geological
conditions, but deep-seated longwall gobs (e.g., those in the Pocahontas No. 3
Seam in Virginia and the Mary Lee Seam in Alabama) produce methane in the
range of 1,800 – 18,000 ft3/min. Multiple entries (typically four) are driven to
develop longwall panels so that necessary air quantities can be delivered to the
longwall faces via the mine ventilation system. In many cases, however, some
type of additional methane control becomes necessary.

The most popular method of methane control is to drill vertical boreholes above
the longwall prior to mining, as shown in Figure – 10. Depending on the length of
the longwall panel (typically 10,000 ft.) and the rate of mining, 3 to 30 vertical gob
degas boreholes are needed. The first hole is usually within 150 – 500 ft. of the
start line of the longwall face. The borehole is drilled to within 30 – 90 ft. from the
top of the coal. The casing is cemented through the fresh water zones near the
surface, and a slotted liner is provided over the lower open section to prevent
closing of the hole by caving. These boreholes are completed prior to mining.
Usually, no measurablemethane production is realized until the longwall face
mines past the borehole.
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 Figure – 10. Simplified Illustration of Methane Drainage by Vertical Gob Wells.
Ventilation Controls are not Shown.

Many gob degasification boreholes produce naturally when the longwall face
intersects them, but vacuum pumps are often added to further improve the flow
and, in some cases, to prevent the reversal of flow. The capture ratios vary from
30% to 80% depending on the number and size of gob wells per panel and the
size of vacuum pumps.

TABLE – 2. Methane Capture Ratios for Post-mining Methane

Drainage Techniques.
METHANE DRAINAGE
TECHNIQUE AND METHANE REMARKS
CAPTURE RATIOS
Packed Cavity Method:
20 – 40% Caving longwalls
30 – 50% Partially stowed longwalls
60 – 80% Fully stowed gobs
Cross-measure Boreholes:
59 – 70% Highly gassy mines with specific
emissions 3,000 – 6,000 ft.3/ton.
Superjacent Method:
50% For multiple coal seams in the gas
emission space.

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 Vertical Gob Wells:
30 – 80% The methane capture efficiency
depends on the number of gob wells per
longwall panel and production
techniques.

A summary of methane capture ratios for the abovementioned post-mining

methane drainage techniques is presented in Table – 2. Although each
technique offers high capture efficiency in some cases, it is the author’s
experience that vertical gob wells, if properly designed, offer the most universal
application with consistently high capture ratios. In addition, this technique is a
natural outgrowth of the pre-mining degasification technique using vertical frac
wells. These frac wells can be converted easily into post-mining gob wells with
minimal additional expense.

G) Economic Benefits of Coalbed Methane Drainage. The economics of coal seam

degasification depends on:

 The gas contents of the coal seam mined and the other coal seams contained
in the gas emission space.
 The fraction of the mine methane emissions captured.
 Infrastructure costs and the market price of the processed gas.

In general, unless the specific methane emission from the mine (cubic feet of
methane per ton of mined coal) is high (above 3,000 ft 3/ton), it may not be profitable
to process the gas for marketing.
H) Potential Uses for the CBM. One of the major decisions when considering the
implementation of a CBM drainage program is the potential use for the gas. The gas
is a clean energy resource. However, the location of the mine and the ability to
convert the gas into a marketable product may severely test the mine planners’
perseverance in finding an economic way of using the gas and producing the
accompanying reduction in greenhouse gases.

1) High-Btu gas. High-Btu gas is generally defined as having enough heat content
to be used in a natural gas pipeline. As shown in Table - 9, several potential
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 uses exist for high-Btu gas. If the drainage system provides primarily CH 4 and
little in the way of inert gas, the product may be gathered, compressed, and
marketed to a pipeline company. This is one of the most desirable options if
natural gas pipelines are located near the mine.

If pipelines are not readily available or if the pipeline companies are not in the
market to buy methane, several other options are available for high-Btu gas. The
first of these would be to use the gas as a feedstock to produce ammonia,
methanol, or acetic acid. Currently, these chemicals are produced from natural
gas, but coalbed methane would be equally useful if it is available in sufficient
quantities and if the chemical plants were in a favorable location.

Another potential method of using CBM would be to compress or liquefy it for use
in buses, trucks, and automobiles. This implementation has been successfully
used in the Ukraine and the Czech Republic and has two primary environmental
advantages. First, it reduces the greenhouse gases released from the vehicles
as combustion byproducts. Second, it utilizes an energy resource that would be
wasted otherwise. The use of CBM in this way requires only that the gas be
available in reasonably steady quantities over time and be available close to the
transportation system.

Mining companies that are currently harvesting high-Btu gas from mines are
relatively few in number. However, the potential economic returns are very high
when ideal conditions are available. The evidence of this is that some mining
companies achieve greater profits from CBM sales than they do from sales of
their coal.

2) Medium-Btu gas. Medium-Btu gas refers to CBM gases having 300 to 950
British Thermal Unit per Standard Cubic Feet (Btu/scf). There are many possible
uses for medium-Btu gas as shown by the listing in Table - 9. However, it may be
more difficult to isolate the most favorable option from the others and to find an
economic justification for utilizing the gas. In many cases, however, the economic
benefits will make the effort to locate a use worthwhile.

Because of the wide range of Btu values in this category, a variety of possibilities
can be found. If the gas is at the high end of the heat content scale, enrichment
by blending with a higher-quality gas or spiking of the gas to produce a gas of

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 pipeline quality is possible. Enrichment is the removal of gases like nitrogen,
oxygen, and carbon dioxide to improve the heat content of the gas. Spiking is the
process of combining another fuel gas (like propane) with the methane to
increase the heat content. Spiking will normally be economic only if the
supplement gas is available cheaply in the area. In addition, it may not always
produce a gas product that is acceptable in a pipeline.

A major and growing use of medium-Btu gas is as a substitute for other fuels in
space heating and other applications where natural gas, fuel oil, or coal is
normally used. For example, CBM can be used for heating mine facilities, heating
mine intake air, heating greenhouses and institutional facilities, as a heat source
in a thermal dryer and as a heat source for treating brine water. These
applications utilize CBM as the primary fuel in most cases. However, additional
uses may be foundin which methane is used as a secondary fuel source. These
include using methane in coal-fired utility and industrial boilers and as a
supplement to natural gas in blast furnaces. Proximity of the CBM source and the
end use are the primary requirement for these applications.

Another use for medium-Btu methane is in electric power production. Either

internal combustion engines, turbines, or fuel cells can be used in this manner.
The electrical power generated can then be used at the mine or be input to the
power grid for use elsewhere.

While the use of medium-Btu CBM does not often offer a mining company as
large a return as high-Btu gas, the uses of medium-Btu gas is growing and the
related technologies are being rapidly improved. It would thus be a mistake to
overlook the uses that are possible for medium-Btu gas. Because many potential
applications are available in this category of gas, the mine management must
consider many options. However, many of the options may quickly be dismissed
upon first inspection and only a few may require careful evaluation.

3) Low-Btu gas. Coalbed methane below 300 Btu/scf is released from in many
mines throughout the U.S. In most cases, these mines handle methane using
ventilation alone and the gas is released into the atmosphere with the exhaust air
of the mine. The concentration of methane is below 1%, making it impossible for
use as a primary energy source. However, two uses are both possible and
reasonable under proper conditions. One is to use the methane by utilizing mine
ventilation air as a replacement for combustion air in various energy production

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 facilities. This includes internal combustion engines, turbines, and coal-fired
power plants. This has already been done in Australia at two coal mines (Eade,
1996). Another possible use for low-Btu gas is in a thermal oxidizer to produce
heat. This converts about 75% of the CH4 into heat, but has not yet been applied
at a mine. Jim Walter Resources has completed a study of the possible use of
vent air in gas turbines (Stevenson et al., 1995).

The use of low-Btu gas from mines is still not common because of the relatively
low yield of energy compared to the capital costs of utilizing the gas. However,
the option of using this waste energy is favorable under the right conditions and
should be considered where the mine and a production facility can be located
close to each other.

Elaborate:

Exercise:
1. Design your own ventilation system for Methane Drainage
Evaluate:

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