Coal industry

Mines are used to extract coal from great depths. The deepest mines in the Russian Federation mine coal from a depth of just over 1200 meters.

Coal deposits contain, along with coal, many types of geo-resources with consumer value. These include host rocks as raw materials for the construction industry, groundwater, coalbed methane , rare and dispersed elements, including rare metals and their compounds. For example, some coals are enriched with germanium .

Coal mine , a mining enterprise designed for open pit mining.

The use of jets as a destruction tool in the executive bodies of shearers and roadheaders is of particular interest. At the same time, there is a constant increase in the development of equipment and technology for the destruction of coal and rocks by high-speed jets of continuous, pulsating and pulsed action.

Modern gas generators have a capacity for solid fuel of up to 80,000 m³ / h and up to 60,000 m³ / h. The gasification technique is developing in the direction of increasing productivity (up to 200,000 m³ / h) and efficiency (up to 90%) by increasing the temperature and pressure of the process (up to 2000 ° C and 10 MPa, respectively).

Experiments were conducted on underground coal gasification , the production of which for various reasons is not economically viable.

By 1945, there were 15 Fischer-Tropsch synthesis plants in the world (in Germany, the USA, China and Japan) with a total capacity of about 1 million tons of hydrocarbons per year. They mainly produced synthetic motor fuels and lubricating oils.

In the years after the Second World War, FT synthesis was given great attention all over the world, since it was believed that oil reserves were coming to an end, and it was necessary to look for a replacement. In 1950, a plant was launched in Brownsville (Texas, USA) at 360 thousand tons per year. In 1955, the South African company Sasol Limited built its own production, existing and developing so far. Since 1952, a plant with a capacity of about 50 thousand tons / year was operating in Novocherkassk , using equipment exported from Germany. The raw material was first coal from the Donetsk basin , and then natural gas. The German Co-Th catalyst was eventually replaced by the original, Co-Zr. An exact rectification column was installed at the plant, so that the product range of the plant included individual high-purity hydrocarbons, including α- olefins with an odd carbon number. The unit worked at the Novocherkassk synthetic products plant until the 1990s and was shut down for economic reasons.

All these enterprises to a large extent borrowed the experience of German chemists and engineers accumulated in the 1930s and 40s.

The discovery of vast oil fields in Arabia, the North Sea, Nigeria, and Alaska sharply reduced interest in FT synthesis. Almost all existing plants were closed; the only major production was preserved in South Africa. Activity in this area resumed by the 1990s.

In 1990, Exxon launched a pilot plant for 8 thousand tons / g with a Co catalyst. In 1992, the South African company Mossgas built a plant with a capacity of 900 thousand tons / year. Unlike Sasol technology, offshore natural gas was used here as a raw material. In 1993, Shell launched a plant in Bintulu ( Malaysia ) with a capacity of 500 thousand tons / year, using a Co-Zr catalyst and the original technology of “middle distillates”. The raw material is the synthesis gas obtained by the partial oxidation of local natural gas. Shell is currently building the plant using the same technology, but with an order of magnitude greater capacity in Qatar . Chevron , Conoco , BP , ENI , Statoil , Rentech , Syntroleum and others have their own projects in the field of FT synthesis of various degrees of development.

In the 1990s, coal production in Russia was steadily declining, falling by almost 1/3 by 1998. Since 2001, growth has been outlined (excluding the recession in 2009). In 2008, 329 million tons of coal were mined in Russia.

Russia

Largest Russian coal producers In 2004, production amounted to:

• SUEK - 74.5 million tons.
• Kuzbassrazrezugol - 39.3 million tons.
• Yuzhkuzbassugol - 18.1 million tons.
• Southern Kuzbass - 15.6 million tons.

In 2015, coal production was

• Kuzbassrazrezugol - 48 million tons
• SUEK-Kuzbass - 30 million tons
• Borodino open pit - 19 million tons
• Vorkutaugol - 14 million tons
• Tugnuysky open pit - 14 million tons
• SUEK-Khakassia - 13 million tons
• Vostsibugol - 12 million tons
• Raspadskaya - 11 million tons
• Yuzhkuzbassugol - 11 million tons
• Southern Kuzbass - 10 million tons

^[7]

In the countries of the former USSR, one of the well-known coal deposits is Donbass ( Ukraine ) and Kuzbass ( Russia ).

• GEOGRAPHY OF THE REPRESENTATIVE OFFICE OF THE ALL-RUSSIAN INDUSTRIAL ASSOCIATION OF EMPLOYERS OF THE COAL INDUSTRY (LLCRUP) - Rosugleprof

According to the Ministry of Energy of the Russian Federation, in 2014, mining was carried out by 89 mines and 107 opencast mines. 358 million tons of coal were mined.

Domestic consumption - thermal coal -140 million tons, coking coal -38 million tons.

• Coal enterprises of Russia are located in 7 federal districts.

Ukraine

Coal burning makes a significant contribution to global warming . There is an opinion that in order to avoid dangerous climate changes, it is necessary to prohibit the production of some of the hydrocarbons . This is especially true for coal. Among the countries that should completely abandon coal mining are China, Russia and the United States ^[8] .

• Bachatsky coal mine
• Proven reserves

• The volume of coal mining in Russia by years // RosStat