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«Vorkutaugol» has started mining coal in a new face

Mining in a new coal longwall panel on «Moschniy» seam has started in «Vorgashorskaya» mine located in Komi republic. The press office of «Vorkutaugol» company briefed «Forpost» on this.

In May, 2018 miners of one of the major core businesses of Russia, which is a part of PAO “Severstal”, began mining longwall panel 133-s in “Vorgashorskaya” mine. Its total coal reserves amount to 2, 5 million tons of gas fat lean coal. It is planned to totally mine coal out the panel in January 2019, providing that the average monthly production will be about 260 thousand tons.

The longwall seam is equipped with roof support produced by DBT, a face conveyor “ Anzhera” and a longwall sharer Eickhoff SL 300. It took 45 days to install the equipment.

“Up to date longwall panel 133-s is central to mining operations. The panel mining out is essential in coal production operations. This longwall panel mining will help “Vorkutaugol” company to fulfill the business plan for extracting steam coal,” said Viktor Amelin, the deputy operations manager of “Vorgashorskaya” mine.

“Vorgashorskaya” is the youngest and the best modernized mine in Vorkuta. It is the largest coal producer in the European part of Russia. 2, 5 million tons of coal were extracted there in 2017. Last year 408 million tons of coal were produced in Russia, which is 6, 5 % more than in 2016. It seems that the trend in increasing coal production will keep on. This is related to the long term forecasts for the growth of global demand for coal, in the first place, owing to the Asian developing countries.

It’s worth noting that Russia possesses the world second largest coal reserves -157 billion tons. This will be enough for another 500 years. By comparison, natural gas reserves will be enough for 70-75 years and oil reserves for 20-30 years.