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Implication of Drilling and Sampling Patterns to the Spatial Heterogeneity of

Coal Deposit Based on Geostatistical Approach

Conference Paper · September 2011

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 PROCEEDINGS JCM MAKASSAR 2011
The 36th HAGI and 40th IAGI Annual Convention and Exhibition
Makassar, 26 – 29 September 2011

IMPLICATION OF DRILLING AND SAMPLING PATTERNS TO THE SPATIAL

HETEROGENEITY OF COAL DEPOSIT BASED ON GEOSTATISTICAL APPROACH

Mohamad Nur Heriawan1, Syafrizal1, Aditya Mahendra2, and Lilik Eko Widodo1
1
Research Group of Earth Resources Exploration, Faculty of Mining and Petroleum Engineering,
Institut Teknologi Bandung (ITB)
2
Study Program of Mining Engineering, Faculty of Mining and Petroleum Engineering,
Institut Teknologi Bandung (ITB)
Email: heriawan@mining.itb.ac.id

ABSTRACT

Drilling pattern and spacing can be correlated to the spatial heterogeneity of coal properties. The optimum
drilling pattern and spacing is directly associated to the number of drillhole and budget required by
mining company. Besides drilling, channel sampling can be conducted much more rapidly based on the
ply by ply sampling, moreover it requires much cheaper budget than drilling. Although the geometrical
support is totally different, drilling sampling is better in term of less subjected by dillution. This study
evaluates the implication of drilling and sampling patterns to the spatial heterogeneity of coal deposit
based on geostatistical approach. The spatial heterogeneity was represented by variogram parameters
principally the nugget ratio and range as well as the estimation error of coal properties by kriging method.
The case study was conducted for a coal seam of Tanjung Formation at South Kalimantan. The existing
drilling and sampling patterns was approximately triangular with much more number of data, and then
they were compared to the square pattern by reducing some data. Obviously the less number of data
would generate the increasing of error estimate. When the increasing of error estimate was not major
anymore, subsequently the drilling and sampling pattern was considered to be optimum.

Keywords: drilling pattern, channel sampling, spatial heterogeneity, geostatistics

INTRODUCTION resources classification. Geostatistical is one

Drilling in coal exploration is essential to
determine the stratigraphic, coal geometric,
geological structure, wallrock characterization
and sampling for coal qualities. The result on
drilling program is used to estimate the coal
resources and reserves. Drillhole spacing is
usually defined after interpreting the coal
continuity from geological mapping. Statistical
evaluation on drillhole data can be used to
define the area of influence and spatial
variability of coal thickness and qualities.
Sample derived from the drilling is better and
more representative compared to the one from
channel sampling. The problem arised
frequently in coal exploration is how to define
quantitatively the optimum drillhole spacing
and pattern. These matters are related to the
proposed budget and confidence level for
method that has ability to quantify the drillholes
spacing based on error variances of regionalized
variables, i.e. coal thickness, ash content, total
sulphur, inherent moisture, total moisture,
volatile matter, and calorific value.
These studies compare the drillholes spacing
and pattern with two different patterns, square
and triangular, and then define the most
optimum one. Both coal thickness and qualities
are considered in defining the error variance of
each pattern using geostatistical approach. A
seam in coal deposit of Tanjung Formation at
South Kalimantan is used for a case study.
STUDY AREA
Warukin Formation (Tmw) with age of Middle
Meocene is the coal bearing formation in the
study site. This formation was deposited in sub-
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 PROCEEDINGS JCM MAKASSAR 2011
The 36th HAGI and 40th IAGI Annual Convention and Exhibition
Makassar, 26 – 29 September 2011
basins Asam-Asam and Barito. The coal deposit
at study site is located at Satui area where it was
deposited at Tanjung Formation with age of
Eocene-Oligocene (FIGURE 1). The strike of
coal seam at the west part is N80ºE in average
and at east part is N45ºE in average. The length
of coal seam distribution is about 14.5 km with
2 (two) main seam are Seam SM (middle) and
Seam SL (lower) with average thickness is 2.7
m and 5.4 m respectively.
The coal seam at Tanjung Formation is high
caloric (bituminous) with bright luster, while at
Warukin Formation the coal seam is relatively
lower caloric (sub-bituminous) with dull luster
and some wood structures. The oldest
sedimentary rock in the study site was deposited
in Tanjung Formation with unconformity border
to the Pre-Tertiary basement. Tanjung
Formation consists of fine to coarse grained
quartz sandstones with thickness 0.5-1.5 m. The
rock structure is fined sedimentary and cross-
bedding, intercalated by gray shally claystone in
the top of formation wih thickness 0.3-1.5 m.
Intercalation of coal is found in the bottom of
formation with black color, bright, brittle, and
thickness 0.5-1.5 m. Lenses limestone is also
found with brownish gray color associated with
pieces of mollusca, echinoid, and forraminifera
i.e. Nummulites Javanus and Heterostegina sp.,
also small foraminifera from Milholidae family
with age of Eocene which deposited in parallic-
neritic environment. The thickness of Tanjung
Formation is 750 m.
STATISTICAL ANALYSIS
Statistical analysis is indispensable to quantity
the trend on data distribution. The result on
statistical analysis could explain the data
correlation and trend of distribution so that we
could define the most appropriate estimation
method. The analyzed data was derived from
sampling on drilling or channeling.
Coal samples from drilling have regular
arrangement for each drillhole i.e. 0.1 m on top
part, some meters on middle part, and 0.1 m on
bottom part of coal seams. Those top and
bottom parts are dirty coal and the middle part
is clean coal. This technic is named ply by ply
where the samples is separated to anticipate
dillution. Statistical analysis was performed for
each part of drilling and channel of samples (top,
middle, and bottom) as seen on TABLE 1. The
most significant coal qualities considered in this
research is ash content and calorific value. The
comparison on the statististical distribution
between drilling and channeling samples was
conducted only for the clean coal (TABLE 2).
The location for channel sampling was clustered
in the north part close to the locations of
subcrops, while the location of drillhole is more
widespread regularly. The difference on these
data supports produces the different data quality.
The ash quality of coal showed relatively higher
value in channel samples rather than in drillhole
due to additional of some impurities material
during the sampling.
The total amount of drillhole data is 28 for
Seam SL2 which is the main coal seam in the
study area. The variables considered in the
analysis are seam thickness, inherent moisture,
ash content, total sulfur, and calorific value.
Statistical analysis showed that the data
distribution for all variables is quite normal with
coefficient of variations lower than 0.5 (Koch &
Link, 1970).
ANALYSIS ON SPATIAL STRUCTURE
Spatial structure of regionalized variable is
performed by variogram model. Experimental
variogram is indispensable to characterize the
spatial continuity and variability before doing
estimation. The parameter resulted from
variogram modelling are range (area of
influence, a), nugget or measurement variance
(C0), and dispersion variance (C). The most
frequently used variogram model is Spherical
(Matheron) model (David, 1977, Barnes, 1979)
where the mathematical function is simply
polynomial and the variogram will reach a finite
value for infinite h.
The mathematical function of Spherical
variogram model is:
for h ≤ a
for h > a
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 PROCEEDINGS JCM MAKASSAR 2011
The 36th HAGI and 40th IAGI Annual Convention and Exhibition
Makassar, 26 – 29 September 2011

for h = 0 according to the geometric and mineralization

represented in variogram.
This variogram model shows a linear behavior
near origin that indicates moderate continuity of A linear estimator is written as:
n
Z (V )* =  i  z (xi )
regionalized variable. The Spherical model is
mostly appropriate applied to the ore grade data
i =1
because ussually give the smallest error in
The OK system in block estimation is written
estimation rather than other models.
as:

   (S , S ) +  =  (S , V )
n
Construction of experimental variogram and
j i j i
fitting model was performed for the drillhole j=1
and channel data of seam thickness, inherent n
moisture, ash content, total sulfur, and calorific
value. Omnidirectional variogram was chosen

i =1
i =1
for all variables as the indication of isotropy The OK variance in block estimation is
was unclear. The lag distance was set 200 m expressed as:

 K2 = − (V ,V ) +  +   j  (S j ,V )
and 150 m respectively for drillhole and channel n

data. The parameters derived from variogram

model of variable from drillhole and channel is
summarized on TABLE 3.
Exploration drilling is the best way to get the
representative samples, but the cost is mostly
high. That is why the optimization on drillhole
spacing is crucial. The presence of fault
structure in the middle part of study area did not
affect significantly the qualities of coal deposit.
Different drillhole spacing and pattern
(triangular and square) by data reducing is
compared for their error variances. The
sampling distribution and pattern for the
existing and reduced data is depicted in
FIGURES 2 and 3 respectively.
GEOSTATISTICAL ESTIMATION
The most frequently used geostatistical method
for estimation is kriging. Ordinary Kriging
(OK) is an estimation method for regionalized
variables on point, area, or volume using criteria
to minimize the estimation variance (Hohn,
1998). The correlation between grade in
drillhole data and grade in block showed a
systematic scattering. Consequently one
drillhole data is not the best value to estimate
the block, and then a correction is necessary.
Matheron (1963) proposed a correction by
weighting the samples value using variogram
function. Tke kriging method is known as Best
Linear Unbiased Estimator (BLUE), where
simply kriging produces the samples weight
j =1
The estimation parameters were used in this
study are:
• Grid size is 100  100 m
• Fault zone is not considered as estimation
boundary.
• The minimum and maximum number of data
used in estimation is 1 and 5 respectively.
• Searching radius is 500 m for drillhole data
and 300 m for channel data.
RESULTS
The calculation on error estimate is based on
estimation values and kriging standard deviation
with confidence level 95% on normal
distribution of error. Then the relative error is
written as:
1.96   K
Error relative = 
Z (V ) *
TABLE 4 summarize the values of relative
errors for existing pattern of channel data,
drillhole (triangular), and reduced pattern of
drillhole (square) for each variables of Seam
SL2.
The different samples support between drillhole
and channel data showed a large different error
on estimation up to 39%. The large error
estimate on channel data is due to the low
continuity of coal thickness and qualities near
the sub-crops. Moreover the channel data is
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 PROCEEDINGS JCM MAKASSAR 2011
The 36th HAGI and 40th IAGI Annual Convention and Exhibition
Makassar, 26 – 29 September 2011
more sensitive to produce dilution rather than
drillhole data.
The reduced pattern of drillhole that shows the
square pattern produced higher error estimate
on coal qualities rather than triangular pattern of
existing drillhole up to 30%. The number of
data is reduced from 28 in square pattern to be
22 in triangular pattern. The increasing of error
for ash content and inherent moisture was
extremely significant rather than for seam
thickness and calorific value when the pattern of
drillhole was changed from triangular to be
square. This result was caused by the high
variation on ash content and inherent moisture
data rather than seam thickness and calorific
value. Total sulphur showed the reverse
condition where the relative error decreased
after changing the pattern of drillhole from
triangular to be square. This due to the reduced
data was outliers by chance.
CONCLUSION
Based on the study on comparing sampling
pattern of coal deposit, we concluded that:
1. The different sampling support between
drillhole and channel gave extremely
different estimation error up to 39%, where
the drillhole data produced much lower error.
2. The presence of geological structure i.e. fault
in the study site did not affect the coal
qualities, so all data is combined to be one
population.
3. Based on the area of influence from
variogram model 150-250 m indicated that
the existing drillhole spacing of 400-500 m is
quite wider.
4. The triangular pattern of drillhole is more
effective up to 30% to reduce the estimation
error on coal qualities rather than square
pattern, but the reducing of estimation error
of coal thickness is not more than 3%.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We would thank sincerely to the Department of
Mineral Resources, PT. Arutmin Indonesia in
supporting to utilize the data set and publish this
paper. We also appreciate the support of
Research Grant of ITB 2010 for the Research
Group of Earth Resources Exploration, Faculty
of Mining and Petroleum Engineering, Bandung
Institute of Technology.
REFERENCES
1. Barnes, M.., Computer-Assisted Mineral
Appraisal and Feasibility, SME-AIME,
New York, 167 pp., 1980.
2. David, M.., Geostatistical Ore Reserve
Estimation, Elsevier Scientific Publishing
Company Inc., New York, 1977.
3. Hohn, M. E., Geostatistics and Petroleum
Geology, Kluwer Academic Publishers,
Netherlands, 1999.
4. Koch, G.S.Jr and Link, R.F., Statistical
Analysis of Geological Data, Wiley, New
York, 1970.
5. Matheron, G., Principles of geostatistics,
Economic Geology, 58, pp. 1246-1266,
1963.
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 PROCEEDINGS JCM MAKASSAR 2011
The 36th HAGI and 40th IAGI Annual Convention and Exhibition
Makassar, 26 – 29 September 2011

TABLE 1: Summary on statistical analysis for ash content and calorific value (CV) in drillhole and
channel data for each part of seam

Drillhole Data
Parameters Top Middle Bottom
Ash CV Ash CV Ash CV
(% adb) (kkal/kg) (% adb) (kkal/kg) (% adb) (kkal/kg)
Number of data 27 27 28 28 28 28
Minimum Value 2.90 5,693 4.70 6,845 3.20 4,591
Maximum Value 25.90 7,498 10.20 7,455 35.00 7,436
Mean 12.33 6,851 6.36 7,245 8.84 6,911
Standard Deviation 5.84 470 1.14 138 7.78 659
Median 11.50 6,903 6.15 7,263 6.35 7,139
Coefficient of Variation 0.47 0.07 0.18 0.02 0.88 0.10
Channel Data
Top Middle Bottom
Parameters Ash CV Ash CV Ash CV
(% adb) (kkal/kg) (% adb) (kkal/kg) (% adb) (kkal/kg)
Number of data 39 38 39 39 38 38
Minimum Value 2.22 3,325 2.02 6,805 2.52 5,044
Maximum Value 51.77 7,677 12.83 7,695 31.92 7,412
Mean 8.85 6,946 6.72 7,201 12.04 6,711
Standard Deviation 9.17 882 1.85 144 6.94 538
Median 6.02 7,263 6.71 7,196 11.17 6,869
Coefficient of Variation 1.04 0.13 0.27 0.02 0.58 0.08

TABLE 2: Summary on statistical analysis for seam thickness and qualities in clean coal (middle part) in
drillhole and channel data

Drillhole Data
Thickness IM Ash TS CV
Parameters
(m) (% adb) (% adb) (% adb) (kkal/kg)
Number of data 28 28 28 28 28
Minimum Value 0.61 2.70 4.70 0.44 6,845
Maximum Value 1.29 5.10 10.20 0.71 7,455
Mean 0.96 4.20 6.36 0.50 7,245
Standard Deviation 0.15 0.55 1.14 0.07 138
Median 1.01 4.40 6.15 0.49 7,263
Coefficient of Variation 0.16 0.13 0.18 0.14 0.02
Channel Data
Thickness IM Ash TS CV
Parameters
(m) (% adb) (% adb) (% adb) (kkal/kg)
Number of data 39 39 39 39 39

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 PROCEEDINGS JCM MAKASSAR 2011
The 36th HAGI and 40th IAGI Annual Convention and Exhibition
Makassar, 26 – 29 September 2011

Minimum Value 0.36 2.99 2.02 0.40 6,805

Maximum Value 1.20 5.95 12.83 1.37 7,695
Mean 0.79 4.20 6.72 0.51 7,201
Standard Deviation 0.20 0.73 1.85 0.15 144
Median 0.78 4.21 6.71 0.49 7,196
Coefficient of Variation 0.25 0.17 0.27 0.29 0.02

TABLE 3: Variogram parameters of coal variables from drillhole and channel data

Drillhole Data
Ash CV IM Thickness TS
Parameters
(% adb) (kkal/kg) (% adb) (m) (% adb)
Nugget Variance (C0) 0.8 12,700 0.05 0.008 0.001
Sill (C) 0.43 6,300 0.247 0.019 0.005
Range (a) 650 600 1,000 570 540
Channel Data
Ash CV IM Thickness TS
Parameters
(% adb) (kkal/kg) (% adb) (m) (% adb)
Nugget Variance (C0) 3 17,500 0.45 0.01 0.00
Sill (C) 0.38 3,200 0.08 0.018 0.02
Range (a) 300 400 380 300 1,000

TABLE 4: The average estimation errors for different sampling patterns.

Channel Data
Ash CV IM Tebal TS

Estimation
28.66 2.11 18.60 26.91 23.94
error (%)

Existing Drillhole Data (Triangular)

Ash CV IM Tebal TS

Estimation
17.48 1.94 11.68 19.64 17.99
error (%)

Reduced Drillhole Data (Square)

Ash CV IM Tebal TS
Estimation
25.28 2.47 15.97 20.21 15.41
error (%)

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 PROCEEDINGS JCM MAKASSAR 2011
The 36th HAGI and 40th IAGI Annual Convention and Exhibition
Makassar, 26 – 29 September 2011

Tet

Study Area

FIGURE 1: Geology of study area at Tanjung Formation, South Kalimantan. Note: Mgr =
Granite, Tet = Tanjung Formation, Tomb = Berai Formation, Tmw = Warukin Formation

FIGURE 2: Distribution of the existing drillhole and channel data shows relatively triangular pattern.

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 PROCEEDINGS JCM MAKASSAR 2011
The 36th HAGI and 40th IAGI Annual Convention and Exhibition
Makassar, 26 – 29 September 2011

FIGURE 3: Distribution of the reduced drillhole data shows relatively square pattern

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