The coal mining industry is the largest segment 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 open method. 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, latest 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.
Flaw this method lies in the fact 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 allows you to extract large number fossil, 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 at the 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 is both destructive and lifting force, the compressed air is under high 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:
- India.
- Australia.
- Indonesia.
- Russia.
- Germany.
- Poland.
- Kazakhstan.
For many years, China has been the leader in coal production. In China, only 1/7 of the existing 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 throughout 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, artisanal methods of coal mining are progressing in this country.
Australia's coal reserves will last approximately 240 years. The mined coal has the highest score quality, a significant part of it is intended for export.
In Indonesia, the level of coal production is growing every year. Just a few years ago most extracted 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, located in Western Siberia. Coking and coal mining is carried out here. coal.
- 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. Represented by brown and hard 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.
Today, coal is the most widely used. With its help, electrical energy, rare and trace elements, and graphite are obtained. Coal is an important raw material in the chemical and metallurgical industries. That is why the request “buy coal” comes up very often.
Russia boasts huge coal reserves, the basins and deposits of which are scattered throughout the country. They differ in geological structure, coal quality, coal saturation and age of sediments. Depending on the structural characteristics, Russian basins are classified into folded, transitional and platform.\
Most of the deposits contain humus coals, among which the main place belongs to coking varieties. Main basins: Donetsk, Pechora, South Yakutsk and Kuznetsk. Brown coal deposits are found in the regions of Eastern Siberia and the Urals, as well as in the Moscow basin.
Coal deposits are uneven in the quality of the fossil, the volume of its reserves and the occupied area. In addition, they, like development companies, are located in different regions of the country. Today coal is mined in ten coal basins. The largest deposits are considered to be the Kuznetsk, Kansko-Achinsk, Gorlovka basins and Eastern Donbass.
The Kuznetsk basin is the main coal base of the country and provides half of the total volume of mined raw materials. Almost twelve percent of mining is done by open pit mining. The Kansk-Achinsk basin supplies brown coal, which is considered the cheapest in the country. Due to its low quality, it is poorly transportable, so it mainly ensures the operation of powerful thermal power plants operating on the basis of the largest open-pit mines. The Pechora basin accounts for four percent of the country's coal production. It is located away from industrial centers, mining is carried out only in mines.
Coal mining
Coal is mined in two main ways - closed and open. In the first case, these are mines or cuts. Mine - complex mining enterprise for underground coal mining. On average, she works for about forty years. Coal is mined in layers, each layer taking approximately ten years to remove. After this, the horizon is reconstructed and a deeper layer is developed. The open-pit mine involves excavating coal in benches and successive strips. Coal mined in mines and open pits is sent directly to the consumer or to processing plants, where it is first sorted and then enriched.
Promising coal basins include Lensky, Tungussky and Taimyrsky. They occupy significant areas in sparsely populated areas of Siberia and the Far East. Today, coal production in the western regions is gradually declining, while in the eastern regions it is increasing. One of the oldest basins is Donbass. The coal mined here is of high quality, which distinguishes it from competitors' products.
Coal industry is engaged in the extraction and primary processing (enrichment) of hard and brown coal and is the largest industry in terms of the number of workers and the cost of production fixed assets.
Coal of Russia
Russia has a variety of types of coal - brown, hard, anthracite - and occupies one of the leading places in the world in terms of reserves. The total geological reserves of coal are 6421 billion tons, of which 5334 billion tons are standard. Over 2/3 of the total reserves are comprised of hard coals. Technological fuel - coking coals - make up 1/10 of the total amount of hard coals.
Coal distribution across the country's territory unevenly. 95% reserves account for eastern regions, of which more than 60% go to Siberia. The bulk of general geological coal reserves are concentrated in the Tunguska and Lena basins. In terms of industrial coal reserves, the Kansk-Achinsk and Kuznetsk basins are distinguished.
Coal mining in Russia
In terms of coal production, Russia ranks fifth in the world (after China, the USA, India and Australia), 3/4 of the mined coal is used for energy and heat production, 1/4 - in metallurgy and chemical industry. A small part is exported, mainly to Japan and the Republic of Korea.
Open pit coal mining in Russia is 2/3 of the total volume. This extraction method is considered the most productive and cheapest. However, this does not take into account the severe disturbances of nature associated with it - the creation of deep quarries and extensive dumps of overburden. Mine mining is more expensive and has a high accident rate, which is largely determined by the deterioration of mining equipment (40% of it is outdated and requires urgent modernization).
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.
Kuznetsk basin, located in the south of Western Siberia in the Kemerovo region, is the main coal base of the country and provides half of all-Russian coal production. Coal lies here high quality, including coking. Almost 12% of production is carried out by open pit mining. The main centers are Novokuznetsk, Kemerovo, Prokopyevsk, Anzhero-Sudzhensk, Belovo, Leninsk-Kuznetsky.
Kansk-Achinsk basin located in the south of Eastern Siberia in the Krasnoyarsk Territory along the Trans-Siberian Railway and accounts for 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).
Pechora basin is the largest in the European part and accounts for 4% of the country's coal production. It is located far from the most important industrial centers and is located in the Arctic; mining is carried out only by mining. In the northern part of the basin (Vorkutinskoye, Vorgashorskoye deposits) coking coals are mined, in the southern part (Intinskoye deposit) - mainly energy coals. 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 the Rostov region is the eastern part of the 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.
Irkutsk-Cheremkhovo basin in the Irkutsk region ensures 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.
South Yakutsk basin(3.9% of all-Russian production) is at 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 areas 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.
In Russia, the Siberian Federal District produces more than 80% of the country's total coal volume. In recent years, coal production has been growing. The industry leader is OJSC SUEK.
The largest industry (in terms of the number of workers and the cost of production fixed assets) of the 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.
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 total volume over the period from 2010 to 2015, the share of energy production increased from 197.4 to 284.4 million tons. The volumes of coal production in Russia by type, see Fig. 2.
Source: Magazine “Coal” according to Rosstat
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.
Source: Rosstat
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 production 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.
Source: Ministry of Energy of the Russian Federation
In 2016, 227,400 thousand tons. extracted 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 open pits.
At the beginning of February 2017, a new open-pit mine, Trudarmeysky Yuzhny, began operating in the Kemerovo region with a design capacity of 2,500 thousand tons per year.
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.
Source: Rosstat
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).
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