Improved extraction ratios for deep coal mines (IMPREX) : final report

The objective of this Project is to research, identify and develop practical means by which coal recovery ratios in European deep mines can be improved significantly in a safe and efficient manner. Currently, large volumes of valuable coal are being left in-situ and effectively sterilised, against a background of dwindling indigenous reserves, rising energy prices and increasing dependency upon imported energy. This situation has become exacerbated by the adoption of highly cost efficient retreat longwalling as the main means of coal recovery in European deep coal mines, which has produced enormous improvements in productivity, but has had detrimental consequences on extraction ratios. It is therefore necessary to devise means of efficiently extracting significant tonnages of the extensive areas of coal which are left around and between longwalls and in old shaft pillars and of improving the deep mined coal industry's ability to maximise its extraction of the reserves of thick coal seams, large tonnages of which are currently abandoned in the goaf.