Improvement of intensive in-seam gas drainage technology at Kirova mine in Kuznetsk coal basin.

Abstract

The Kirova mine with its 3 Mt production in 2019 is one of the coal mining leaders in Russia. The available mining equipment has the potential to significantly increase the output, however, gas is a limiting factor on the way to this. The customary approaches to coal seam degassing have already been petered out. The miners and mine science are facing a challenge to validate and test an alternative technology to ensure effective in-seam gas drainage prior to vigorous mining. This article gives an account of the improvement track record of the in-seam gas drainage technology used to pre-treat coal seam for intensive and safe extraction. This technology suggests, at the first stage, hydraulic slotting of the target coal seam through wells drilled from the surface (SHS), then hydraulic fracturing of the coal seam through the boreholes drilled from underground development headings, followed by methane extraction from the created high-permeability coal-gas reservoir through standard in-seam gas dranage underground wells. Presented in this paper are the results of field testing of improved SHS technique. Findings are presented on the effective parameters of the hydraulic fracturing technology. Methodological recommendations are offered for selecting viable in-seam gas drainage technology.