From Mining to Refining - Contribution of selective Mining to Value Chain optimisation

Abstract

The target of extraction of minerals from the earth crust is the creation of final products. On the way of the mineral from the earth crust to the final product are many steps: exploration, extraction, transportation, storage, processing, refining … In a successful operation, the steps shall be optimized, to minimize the energy and material consumption, environmental impacts, costs …. So one action in a prior step can influence the following. Coal is a unique commodity and can be used for different targets: heat, electricity, metallurgy, chemistry … but this targets need special quality of coal. In coal deposits often can be exist different qualities of coal from point of views like heating value, ash content, humidity, sulphur, bitumen and other minerals. In a cheap mass excavation the coal can be extracted like a mix and then later separated and processed for the different targets. But knowing the distribution of the different coal qualities in the coal seam, a selective mining is possible; the coal qualities are separated on face and delivered to the next process step. From the higher strains in mining profit the following steps: less material must be treated, higher concentration of useful and less concentration of disturbing elements. The paper presents a case study from the middle German mining district for the selective mining of coal for extraction and catalysis of bitumen rich coal. There was developed a concept of real time mining, based on interaction of the excavation data with the data of the geological model to control the excavation process.