Market analysis: Coal mining in Russia. Coal mining areas in Russia Where and how coal is mined

Since I live in the land of miners, I could not help but become interested in the methods of extracting this mineral, which, by the way, are not so many. Taking this opportunity, I will try to briefly talk about the pros and cons of each of them.

Coal mining: mine method

Mining fossils this way provides a huge advantage, since the most valuable types of fuel lie at great depths. At the same time, coal contains virtually no waste rock, which cannot be said about the open method, but more on that a little later. So, in order to get to the deposits, deep vertical tunnels are drilled. As soon as a formation is discovered, its horizontal development begins. Sometimes the depth reaches 1.5 km, for example, the Gvardeiskaya mine, which is located in the Donbass. However, this method contains many disadvantages:

• threat of flooding;
• since methane is an eternal companion of coal seams, this is fraught with suffocation of workers or explosion;
• the greater the depth, the higher the temperature, which means there is a risk for people and equipment.

About 40% of the world's reserves are mined this way.

Coal mining: open pit or open pit method

In this case, there is no need not only for expensive drilling, but also for the construction of a number of ground communications. The essence comes down to blasting waste rock, and then huge excavators, crushers and trucks come into play, processing the rock and transporting it to dumps. This method is less dangerous, but there are still some risks associated with it. This includes the threat of an unscheduled explosion, poisoning of workers by exhaust fumes, and careless handling of hazardous equipment.

Coal mining by hydraulic method

In principle, this is the same mine, but there is one peculiarity: the transportation of the fossil is carried out by a stream of water under enormous pressure. It turns out that groundwater - headache miners, work for their benefit. Today this method is considered one of the best, since it replaces the labor-intensive transportation process. Disadvantages include the dependence of production on the type of rock, and constant contact of water with the equipment.

The range of its use is very wide. Coal is used to generate electricity, as an industrial raw material (coke), for the production of graphite, and to produce liquid fuel by hydrogenation.

Russia has vast reserves of coal deposits and coal basins.

A coal basin is an area (often over 10 thousand square kilometers) of development of coal deposits that formed in certain conditions over a certain period of time. The coal deposit has a smaller area and is a separate tectonic structure.

On the territory of Russia there are platform, folded and transitional basins.

The largest amount of coal deposits has been identified in Western and Eastern Siberia.

60% of Russian coal reserves are humic coals, including coking coal (Karaganda, South Yakutsk, Kuznetsk basins). Brown coals are also found (Ural, Eastern Siberia, Moscow region).

Coal reserves are dispersed across 25 coal basins and 650 individual deposits.

Coal mining is carried out using closed or open methods. Closed mining is carried out in mines, open - in quarries (cuts).

The life of a mine is on average 40 - 50 years. Each layer of coal takes about 10 years to remove from the mine, followed by the development of the deeper layer through reconstruction. Reconstruction of the mine horizons is prerequisite to save environment and ensuring worker safety.

In open-pit mines, coal is extracted in successive strips.

As of 2010, coal in Russia was mined in 91 mines and 137 open-pit mines. The total annual capacity was 380 million tons.

After coal is extracted in mines or open pits, it goes directly to the consumer or is sent to coal enrichment enterprises.

In special factories, pieces of coal are sorted by size and then enriched.

The enrichment process is the purification of fuel from waste rock and foreign impurities.

Today, coal in Russia is mined mainly in the territory of 10 main basins. The largest deposit of hard and coking coals is the Kuznetsk basin (Kemerovo region), brown coal mined in the Kansk-Achinsk basin ( Krasnoyarsk region, Eastern Siberia), Anthracites - in the Gorlovka basin and Donbass.

The coal in these pools is of the highest quality.

Other well-known coal basins in Russia include the Pechora basin (Arctic region), the Irkutsk-Cheremkhovo basin in the Irkutsk region, and the South Yakut basin in the Far East.

The Taimyr, Lena and Tunguska basins are being actively developed in Eastern Siberia, as well as deposits in the Trans-Baikal Territory, Primorye, Novosibirsk region.

The largest industry (by number of workers and value of production fixed assets) fuel industry is coal mining in Russia.

The coal industry mines, processes (enriches) hard coal, brown coal and anthracite.

How and how much coal is produced in the Russian Federation

This mineral is mined depending on the depth of its location: open-pit (in open-pit mines) and underground (in mines) by methods.

During the period from 2000 to 2015, underground production increased from 90.9 to 103.7 million tons, and open-pit production increased by more than 100 million tons from 167.5 to 269.7 million tons. The amount of minerals mined in the country during this period, broken down by production method, can be seen in Fig. 1.

Rice. 1: Coal production in the Russian Federation from 2000 to 2015, broken down by production method, in million.

According to information from the Fuel and Energy Complex (FEC), 385 million tons of black minerals were produced in the Russian Federation in 2016, which is 3.2% higher than the previous year. This allows us to conclude that the industry has had positive growth dynamics in recent years and is promising despite the crisis.

The types of this mineral mined in our country are divided into energy coals and coals for coking.

In the total volume for the period from 2010 to 2015, the share of energy production increased from 197.4 to 284.4 million tons. For the volume of coal production in Russia by type, see Fig. 2.

2: Structure of coal production in the Russian Federation by type for 2010-2015, in million tons.

How much black mineral is there in the country and where is it mined?

According to Rosstat, Russian Federation(157 billion

tons) ranks second after the United States (237.3 billion tons) in the world in terms of coal reserves. The Russian Federation accounts for about 18% of all world reserves. See Figure 3.

Rice. 3: World reserves by leading countries

Information from Rosstat for 2010-2015 indicates that production in the country is carried out in 25 constituent entities of the Federation in 7 Federal Districts.

There are 192 coal enterprises. These include 71 mines and 121 coal mines. Their total productive capacity is 408 million tons. More than 80% of it is mined in Siberia. Coal production in Russia by region is shown in Table 1.

In 2016, 227,400 thousand.

tons were mined in the Kemerovo region (such cities with one industry affiliation are called single-industry towns), of which about 125,000 thousand tons were exported.

Kuzbass accounts for about 60% of domestic coal production, there are about 120 mines and opencast mines.

At the beginning of February 2017, a new open-pit mine, Trudarmeysky Yuzhny, with a design capacity of 2,500 thousand, began operation in the Kemerovo region.

In 2017, it is planned to extract 1,500 thousand tons of minerals from the open-pit mine, and, according to forecasts, the open-pit mine will reach its design capacity in 2018. Also in 2017, three new enterprises are planned to be launched in Kuzbass.

Largest deposits

On the territory of the Russian Federation there are 22 coal basins (according to Rosstat information for 2014) and 129 individual deposits.

More than 2/3 of the reserves that have already been explored are concentrated in the Kansk-Achinsk (79.3 billion tons) and Kuznetsk (53.4 billion tons) basins. They are located in the Kemerovo region of the Krasnoyarsk Territory.

Also among the largest basins are: Irkutsk, Pechora, Donetsk, South Yakutsk, Minusinsk, and others.

Figure 4 shows the structure of proven reserves for the main basins.

Rice. 4: Proven reserves for the main basins in Russia, billion tons.

Import Export

The Russian Federation is one of the three largest coal exporters after Australia (export volume 390 million).

tons) and Indonesia (330 million tons) in 2015. Russia's share in 2015 - 156 million tons of black minerals were exported. This figure for the country has increased by 40 million tons over five years. In addition to the Russian Federation, Australia and Indonesia, the six leading countries include the United States of America, Colombia and South Africa.

The structure of world exports is shown in Fig. 5.

Rice. 5: Structure of world exports (largest exporting countries).

The Central Dispatch Office of the Fuel and Energy Complex reports that total exports from the country increased in 2016, while imports decreased.

Data on export-import in 2016 are presented in Table 2.

Head of the information and analytical department of the department of coal and peat industry of the Ministry of Energy of the country V.

Grishin predicts an increase in exports by 6% in 2017, its volume could reach 175 million tons, that is, an increase of 10 million tons.

Which companies are the largest producers

Large oil companies Russia is on everyone’s lips, and the largest coal producing companies in the country in 2016 are: OJSC SUEK (105.47), Kuzbassrazrezugol (44.5), SDS-Ugol (28.6), “ Vostsibugol (13.1), Southern Kuzbass (9), Yuzhkuzbassugol (11.2), Yakutugol (9.9), Raspadskaya OJSC (10.5), the amount of coal produced is indicated in parentheses in millions of tons, see

Rice. 6. Largest producers in the Russian Federation in 2016, in million.

The companies OJSC SUEK, Kuzbassrazrezugol and SDS-Ugol have been leaders in production over the past years.

The largest producers for 2014-2015 are presented in Fig.

7. Among them, in addition to the above two industry leaders, there are also processing plants: Kuzbass Fuel Company, Sibuglement Holding, Vostsibugol, Russian Coal, EVRAZ (one of the largest private companies in the country), Mechel Mining, SDS-Coal.

7. The largest producers in the Russian Federation for 2014-2015, in million tons.

In November 2016, Evgeniy Kosmin’s team of section No. 1 of the V.D. mine.

Yalevsky JSC SUEK-Kuzbass installed a new Russian record production per year from one production face - 4,810 thousand tons.

Results and conclusions

• The Russian coal complex is actively developing.
• Imports have fallen slightly in recent years, while exports and production have increased.
• In terms of exports, the Russian Federation is one of the three leading countries after Australia and Indonesia.
• In the coming years, it is planned to open new mining and processing enterprises.
• The top three include companies from the Siberian region, which accounts for more than 80% of the country’s total production.

Lyudmila Poberezhnykh, 2017-03-29

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Reference materials on the topic

Coal basins of Russia

The role of a particular coal basin in the territorial division of labor depends on the quality of coal, the size of reserves, technical and economic indicators of production, the degree of preparedness of reserves for industrial exploitation, the size of production, and the characteristics of the transport and geographical location.

Based on the totality of these conditions, the following stand out: inter-district coal bases- Kuznetsk and Kansk-Achinsk basins, which together account for 70% of coal production in Russia, as well as the Pechora, Donetsk, Irkutsk-Cheremkhovo and South Yakutsk basins.
The most important producer of hard coal in Russia is the Kuznetsk Coal Basin.

Kuznetsk basin

The balance reserves of Kuzbass hard coal of category A+B+C1 are estimated at 57 billion tons, which is 58.8% of hard coal in Russia.

At the same time, coking coal reserves amount to 30.1 billion tons, or 73% of the country’s total reserves.

Almost the entire range of hard coal grades is mined in Kuzbass. The subsoil of Kuzbass is rich in other minerals - these are manganese, iron, phosphorite, nepheline ores, oil shale and other minerals.

Kuznetsk coals are of high quality: ash content is 8-22%, sulfur content is 0.3-0.6%, specific heat of combustion is 6000 - 8500 kcal/kg.

The average depth of underground development reaches 315m.
About 40% of the mined coal is consumed in the Kemerovo region itself and 60% is exported to other regions of Russia and for export.
In the structure of coal exports from Russia, Kuzbass accounts for over 70% of its physical volume.
Coal lies here High Quality, including coking. Almost 12% of mining is carried out by open pit mining.
Belovsky district is one of the oldest coal mining areas in Kuzbass.

The balance reserves of coal in the Belovsky district amount to more than 10 billion.

tons
The development of the Kuznetsk coal basin began in 1851 with more or less regular production of fuel at the Bachat mine for the Guryev Metallurgical Plant. The Bachat mine was located six miles northeast of the village of Bachat. Now this place is occupied by the Chertinskaya-Koksovaya and Novaya-2 mines and the Novobochatsky open-pit mine.
The firstborn of the coal industry in Belov is considered to be the Pionerka mine, in 1933. The first ton of coal was mined here.

Currently, the Belovsky district is the largest coal mining region in Kuzbass.
The Belovsky district is the geographical center of the Kemerovo region.
The main centers are Novokuznetsk, Kemerovo, Prokopyevsk, Anzhero-Sudzhensk, Belovo, Leninsk-Kuznetsky.

The Kansk-Achinsk basin is located in the south of Eastern Siberia in the Krasnoyarsk Territory along the Trans-Siberian Railway and produces 12% of coal production in Russia.

Brown coal from this basin is the cheapest in the country, as it is mined by open-pit mining. Due to its low quality, coal is poorly transportable and therefore powerful thermal power plants operate on the basis of the largest open-pit mines (Irsha-Borodinsky, Nazarovsky, Berezovsky).

The Pechora basin is the largest in the European part and accounts for 4% of the country's coal production.

It is removed from the most important industrial centers and is located in the Arctic, mining is carried out only by the mine method. In the northern part of the basin (Vorkutinskoye and Vorgashorskoye deposits) coking coals are mined, and in the southern part (Intinskoye deposit) mainly energy coals are mined.

The main consumers of Pechora coal are the Cherepovets Metallurgical Plant, enterprises in the North-West, Center and Central Black Earth Region.

Donetsk basin in Rostov region is eastern part coal basin located in Ukraine.

This is one of the oldest coal mining areas. The mine method of extraction led to the high cost of coal. Coal production is declining every year and in 2007 the basin provided only 2.4% of all-Russian production.

The Irkutsk-Cheremkhovo basin in the Irkutsk region provides low cost of coal, since mining is carried out by open-pit mining and produces 3.4% of coal in the country.

Due to the great distance from large consumers, it is used at local power plants.

The South Yakut basin (3.9% of all-Russian production) is located in the Far East. It has significant reserves of energy and technological fuel, and all production is carried out by open-pit mining.

Promising coal basins include the Lensky, Tungussky and Taimyrsky, located beyond the Yenisei north of the 60th parallel.

They occupy vast spaces in poorly developed and sparsely populated areas of Eastern Siberia and the Far East.

In parallel with the creation of inter-regional coal bases, there was widespread development of local coal basins, which made it possible to bring coal production closer to the areas of its consumption. At the same time, in the western regions of Russia, coal production is declining (Moscow basin), and in the eastern regions it is increasing sharply (deposits of the Novosibirsk region, Trans-Baikal Territory, Primorye.

Coal is a sedimentary rock formed by the decomposition of plant remains (tree ferns, horsetails and mosses, as well as the first gymnosperms). The main reserves of coal currently mined were formed during the Paleozoic period, about 300-350 million years ago. Coal has been mined for several centuries and is one of the most important minerals. Used as solid fuel.

Coal consists of a mixture of high molecular weight aromatic compounds (mainly carbon), as well as water and volatile substances with a small amount of impurities. Depending on the composition of coal, the amount of heat released during its combustion changes, as well as the amount of ash produced. The value of coal and its deposits depends on this ratio.

For the formation of a mineral, the following condition also had to be met: rotting plant material had to accumulate faster than its decomposition occurred. That is why coal was formed mainly on ancient peat soils, where carbon compounds accumulated and there was practically no access to oxygen. The starting material for the formation of coal is, in fact, peat itself, which was also used as fuel for some time. Coal was formed when peat layers were under other sediments. At the same time, the peat was compressed and lost water, resulting in the formation of coal.

Coal occurs when peat layers occur at a significant depth, usually more than 3 km. At greater depths, anthracite is formed - the highest grade of coal. However, this does not mean that all coal deposits are located at great depths. Over time, under the influence of tectonic processes various directions some layers experienced uplift, resulting in them being closer to the surface.

The method of coal mining also depends on the depth at which coal-bearing minerals are located. If coal lies at a depth of up to 100 meters, then mining is usually carried out using an open pit method. This is the name for removing the top of a deposit, in which the mineral appears on the surface. For mining from great depths, the shaft method is used, in which access is achieved through the creation of special underground passages - shafts. The deepest coal mines in Russia are located at a distance of about 1200 meters from the surface.

The largest coal deposits in Russia

Elga field (Sakha)

This coal deposit, located in the southeast of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) 415 km east of the city of Neryungri, is the most promising for open-pit mining. The field area is 246 km2. The deposit is a gentle asymmetrical fold.

The deposits of the Upper Jurassic and Lower Cretaceous are coal-bearing. The main coal seams are located in the deposits of the Neryungri (6 seams with a thickness of 0.7-17 m) and Undyktan (18 seams with a thickness of also 0.7-17 m) formations.

The coals here are mostly semi-shiny with a very high content of the most valuable component - vitrinite (78-98%), medium- and high-ash, low-sulfur, low-phosphorus, well-sintered, with a high calorific value. Elga coal can be enriched using special technology, which will produce a higher quality product that meets international standards. Thick, flat coal seams are overlain by thin deposits, which is very important for open-pit mining.

Elegest deposit (Tuva)

Located in the Republic of Tuva. This field has reserves of about 20 billion tons. Most of the reserves (about 80%) are located in one layer 6.4 m thick. The development of this deposit is currently ongoing, so coal mining here should reach its maximum capacity around 2012.

Large coal deposits (the area of ​​which is thousands of km2) are called coal basins. Typically, such deposits are located in some large tectonic structure (for example, a trough). However, not all fields located close to each other are usually combined into basins, and sometimes they are considered as separate fields. This usually happens according to historically established ideas (deposits were discovered in different periods).

Minusinsky coal basin is located in the Republic of Khakassia. Coal mining here began in 1904. To the most large deposits include Chernogorskoye and Izykhskoye. According to geologists, coal reserves in this area amount to 2.7 billion tons. The pool is dominated by long-flame coals with a high calorific value. The coals are classified as medium ash. The maximum ash content is typical for coals of the Izykh deposit, the minimum – for coals of the Beiskoye deposit. Coal mining in the basin is carried out in different ways: there are both open-pit mines and mines.

Kuznetsk coal basin (Kuzbass)– one of the largest coal deposits in the world. Kuzbass is located in the south in a shallow basin between the mountain ranges of Mountain Shoria and. This is the territory of the Kemerovo region. The abbreviation “Kuzbass” is the second name of the region. The first deposit in the Kemerovo region was discovered back in 1721, and in 1842 the geologist Chikhachev introduced the term “Kuznetsk coal basin.”

Mining is also carried out here different ways. There are 58 mines and more than 30 open-pit mines on the territory of the basin. The quality of "" coals is varied and is among the best coals.

The coal-bearing strata of the Kuznetsk coal basin consists of approximately 260 coal seams of varying thickness, unevenly distributed across the section. The predominant thickness of coal seams is from 1.3 to 4.0 m, but there are also thicker seams of 9-15 and even 20 m, and in some places up to 30 m.

Maximum depth coal mines does not exceed 500 m (average depth about 200 m). The average thickness of the developed coal seams is 2.1 m, but up to 25% of mine coal production occurs in seams over 6.5 m.

When I was invited to see how coal is mined in the Amur region, I did not immediately know where to fly. Moscow and the Amur region, where the coal mines of the Amur Coal company (part of the Russian Coal holding) are located, are separated by thousands of kilometers, six hours of flight and six hours of time difference. I’ll get some sleep during the flight, I thought, packed up my equipment, tightened my jet lag and flew.

Today we will learn how brown coal is mined.

When I arrived at the coal deposits and said “quarry”, they immediately corrected me - not “quarry”, but “mine”. Cut because the way coal is mined is such that when the waste rock is removed, it creates long depressions in the ground that look like cuts. If you look at the North-Eastern section near the city of Raichikhinsk from space, you can see the following picture - stripes in the ground characteristic of coal mining.

Mining at the North-Eastern open-pit mine (area 500 km2) has been carried out since 1932. The Erkovetsky open-pit mine (field area 1250 km2) began supplying the country with coal in 1991. The thickness of the coal seam here is 3.5 - 5 meters.

Brown coal does not lie very deep underground, so it is mined using the open-pit method, which is considered safer, more economical and faster. At first glance at a piece of coal, the question arises: “why is it brown if it is black?” But Amur Coal specialists explained to me that previously the quality of coal was determined by the trace of a line left on a porcelain plate. Amur coal, as you understand, leaves a brown trace.

Brown coal is lower in calories than hard coal and anthracite. We look at Wikipedia and find out that caloric content, that is, heat of combustion, is the amount of heat released during the complete combustion of a mass or volume unit of a substance. Coal also has other quality parameters - moisture and sulfur content, volatile substances and ash content. All this is carefully analyzed by the departments of technological control of coal quality and coal chemical laboratories.

But let's get back to the mining process. solid fuel. Everything here, at first glance, is quite simple - a giant walking dragline excavator opens the coal (removes waste rock), and a smaller excavator loads coal into cars. That's all! But if it were that simple, there would be no shortage of people wanting to mine coal. In reality, coal mining requires large investments, experience and knowledge, a team of real professionals with skills and abilities that are now rare, as well as an extensive fleet of expensive mining equipment, its own repair shops or factories, car depots, training centers… I won’t burden you with information about how geologists search for coal and how they receive a license to mine minerals, but let’s move straight to the most interesting and understandable part.

I have always associated coal mining with big, no, huge excavators. Actually, at coal mines, they immediately catch the eye because of their impressive appearance and majestic posture - the arrows proudly raised upward immediately make it clear that “black gold” is being mined somewhere here.

The name of each excavator contains abbreviations. For example, ESH 15/90 means Walking Excavator, 15 cubic meters is the volume of the bucket, and 90 meters is the length of the boom. In total, 24 such mastodons are used in the open-pit mines of Amur Coal, differing in the length of the boom and the volume of the bucket. Some buckets can easily accommodate a UAZ “loaf”, while others can accommodate a Land Cruiser SUV.

Stripping (excavation of sandstone and clay) occurs like this: the excavator operator lowers the bucket to the ground, then, using control levers, pulls it towards himself, filling it.

Then the operator, by turning the base and boom, moves the bucket towards the dumps and dumps it. In a month, the excavator crew must excavate about 300 thousand cubic meters of rock.

Where the dragline has worked, mountains of waste rock remain - dumps. Therefore, the area where coal is mined sometimes resembles lunar landscapes. But only as long as coal mining continues. After mining the site, reclamation is immediately carried out on it - the dumps are leveled, fertile layer land, trees are planted. In a few years, most people will not even notice that there used to be coal mining and walking giants working here!

In the meantime, geology can be studied from the landscape of the section.

By the way, after the dragline has reached the coal, and then the coal has been selected (that is, completely dug up in some area), the cut is backfilled with the same rock - a real waste-free production!

It was a discovery for me that walking excavators (and many other excavators too) work on electrical energy. Each mountain section of the mine receives electricity from a 35/6 kV substation.

All equipment at open-pit mines operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week: teams work in shifts. Small relaxations in work can only be done in the event of an abnormally low temperature - when giant buckets begin to freeze tightly to the ground.

But I will tell you more about draglines later in a separate post. Stay tuned.

Coal seams lie close to groundwater, so it is necessary to constantly pump it out with pumps. Here you can clearly see which layer of rock was removed to get to the coal deposits.

Well, then everything is simple - the EKG-5A excavator picks up coal into a bucket and loads it directly into cars, which will take it in ordinary form to the consumer or to the coal sorting site.

The bucket of the EKG-5A excavator holds 5 cubic meters of coal, and in order to fill a standard wagon it is necessary to load 13-14 buckets of coal into it.

Coal is brought to sorting in order to separate it into different fractions. The local Raichikhinskaya State District Power Plant and Blagoveshchenskaya Thermal Power Plant consume fine-fraction coal, and the larger fraction is used for the needs of housing and communal services, in other words, for heating.

This is what the coal sorting area looks like from the inside. If you don’t know what it is and how it works, then the next action will be a surprise, as it was for me.

This is a kind of “carousel” for carriages. An operator from the side checks that the car has entered the car dumping platform, gives a signal, and the car, which is standing on the platform, rises up and tips the contents into the receiving hopper.

After a few seconds, this huge mechanism (stationary side car dumper) returns the car to its previous position.

An impressive sight!

Then, from the receiver, the coal is sent through a complex system of conveyors through a special gallery for sorting, where it is divided into different fractions using screens and vibrating sieves. Well, then into the furnace to provide electricity and heat.

That's all! Thank you for reading.

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The coal mining industry is the largest segment of the fuel industry. Throughout the world, it surpasses any other in terms of the number of workers and the amount of equipment.

What is the coal industry

The coal mining industry involves the extraction of coal and its subsequent processing. Work is being carried out both on the surface and underground.

If the deposits are located at a depth of no more than 100 meters, work is carried out using the quarry method. Mines are used to develop deposits at great depths.

Classic methods of coal mining

Working in open-pit coal mines and underground are the main methods of mining. Most of the work in Russia and in the world is carried out using open-pit mining. This is due to financial benefits and high speed production

The process is as follows:

• Using special equipment, the top layer of earth covering the deposit is removed. A few years ago the depth open works was limited to 30 meters, Newest technologies allowed to increase it 3 times. If the top layer is soft and small, it is removed using an excavator. A thick and dense layer of earth is pre-crushed.
• Coal deposits are broken off and taken away using special equipment to the enterprise for further processing.
• Workers are restoring the natural topography to avoid harm to the environment.

The disadvantage of this method is that coal deposits located at shallow depths contain impurities of dirt and other rocks.

Coal mined underground is considered cleaner and of higher quality.

The main objective of this method is to transport coal from great depths to the surface. For this purpose, passages are created: an adit (horizontal) and a shaft (inclined or vertical).

In the tunnels, special combines are used to cut layers of coal and load them onto a conveyor that lifts them to the surface.

The underground method makes it possible to extract large quantities of minerals, but it has significant disadvantages: high cost and increased danger for workers.

Unconventional methods of coal mining

These methods are effective, but are not widespread - on this moment There are no technologies that allow you to clearly establish the process:

• Hydraulic. Mining is carried out in a mine at great depth. The coal seam is crushed and delivered to the surface under strong water pressure.
• Compressed air energy. It acts as both a destructive and lifting force; the compressed air is under strong pressure.
• Vibration pulse. The layers are destroyed under the influence of powerful vibrations generated by the equipment.

These methods were used back in the Soviet Union, but did not become popular due to the need for large financial investments. Only a few coal mining companies continue to use unconventional methods.

Their main advantage is the absence of workers in potentially life-threatening areas.

Leading countries in coal production

According to world energy statistics, a ranking of countries occupying leading positions in coal production in the world has been compiled:

1. India.
2. Australia.
3. Indonesia.
4. Russia.
5. Germany.
6. Poland.
7. Kazakhstan.

For many years, China has been the leader in coal production. In China, only 1/7 of the available deposits are being developed, this is due to the fact that coal is not exported outside the country, and the existing reserves will last for at least 70 years.

In the United States, deposits are evenly scattered across the country. They will provide the country with their reserves for at least 300 years.

Coal deposits in India are very rich, but almost all of what is mined is used in the energy industry, since the available reserves are of very low quality. Despite the fact that India occupies one of the leading positions, this country is progressing artisanal methods coal mining.

Australia's coal reserves will last approximately 240 years. The mined coal is of the highest quality, and a significant part of it is intended for export.

In Indonesia, the level of coal production is growing every year. A few years ago, most of what was produced was exported to other countries; now the country is gradually abandoning the use of oil, and therefore the demand for coal for domestic consumption is growing.

Russia has 1/3 of the world's coal reserves, but not all of the country's lands have been explored yet.

Germany, Poland and Kazakhstan are gradually reducing their coal production volumes due to the uncompetitive cost of raw materials. Most of the coal is intended for domestic consumption.

Main coal mining sites in Russia

Let's figure it out. Coal mining in Russia is carried out mainly by open-pit mining. The deposits are scattered unevenly throughout the country - most of them are located in the eastern region.

The most significant coal deposits in Russia are:

• Kuznetskoe (Kuzbass). It is considered the largest not only in Russia, but throughout the world; it is located in Western Siberia. Coking and hard coal are mined here.
• Kansko-Achinskoe. Mining is carried out here. The deposit is located along the Trans-Siberian Railway, occupying part of the territories of the Irkutsk and Kemerovo regions, Krasnoyarsk Territory.
• Tunguska coal basin. Presented as brown and stone views coal It covers part of the territory of the Republic of Sakha and the Krasnoyarsk Territory.
• Pechora coal basin. Mining is carried out at this deposit. Work is carried out in mines, which allows the extraction of high-quality coal. It is located in the territories of the Komi Republic and the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug.
• Irkutsk-Cheremkhovo coal basin. Located on the territory of the Upper Sayan. Provides coal only to nearby enterprises and settlements.

Today, 5 more deposits are being developed that can increase the annual volume of coal production in Russia by 70 million tons.

Prospects for the coal mining industry

Most of the world's coal deposits have already been explored; from an economic point of view, the most promising ones belong to 70 countries. The level of coal production is growing rapidly: technologies are being improved and equipment is being modernized. Due to this, the profitability of the industry increases.