IMPROVEMENT OF ECONOMIC EFFICIENCY OF LONGWALL MINING, IN SHORT PANELS, IN THE CASE OF JIU VALLEY THICK COAL SEAMS

11th International Multidisciplinary Scientific GeoConference SGEM2011, www.sgem.org, SGEM2011 Conference Proceedings/ ISSN 1314-2704, June 20-25, 2011, Vol. 1, 801-808 pp

ABSTRACT

In the Jiu Valley coal basin (Romania), from over 2 thousand million tonnes of balance
reserve, more than 60% are involved in the bituminous coal seams no.3 and no.5, which
ensure 90% of the coal output of the entire basin. The thick coal seams no.3 is mined in
slices with longwall mining system and roof control by caving. Because of the short
mining panels, often under 300-400m, the starting costs of mining panels become very
important at the entire panel coal reserves. Therefore, in this paper there are presented
some starting mining technologies that reduce the coal mining costs, in the case of slices
mining. Also, it is made a comparative technical and economical analysis, between
these three starting systems, depending on the panel width and length.

Keywords: cost, coal mining, panel limit, coal slice, reversible powered support