Coking Coals Potential Resources Prediction in Deep Coal Beds in Northern China

Abstract

The coking coal resource in China is quite rich but is relative poor in the shallow coal beds. The total coals for coking are abundant, but the main coking coal resource is limted too. The coking coals distribute in 29 provinces (or autonomous regions), but they mainly concentrate only in a few provinces in which Shanxi province is the most important. Coking coal in China has rich in types, but among them the Gas coal and one-third of coking coal account for large proportion of proven resources reserve of coals for coking, meanwhile the coking coal and fat coal have low percentage, which are the main coal types in coking. In the current years the coking coal resource in shallow coal beds are becoming poor and poor because of the large production. Meanwhile, in the deep coal beds with more than 800 m contain lots of coking coals resources. According to the coal metamorphism theory the coal rank will increase gradually with the buried depth. When the mining depth is reach up to 1200 m in Northern China a large amount of fat coal, coking coal would be found and exploited in the coming years. This new prediction for coking coals in deep coal beds will resolve the problem of short supply of coking coal in China.