Qualification of coal seam for anderground Coal Gasification (UCG) method in Mazino Coal Basin, Tabas

Subject Areas :

Mehdi Najafi ¹ , Seyed Mohammad Esmaiel Jalali ² , Reza Kakaie ³ , Aliasghar Lotfi Azad ⁴

1 - دانشجوی دکترای استخراج معدن دانشکده مهندسی معدن،نفت و ژئوفیزیک دانشگاه صنعتی شاهرود
2 - دانشیار دانشکده مهندسی معدن ،نفت و ژئوفیزیک دانشگاه صنعتی شاهرود
3 - استاد دانشکده مهندسی معدن ،نفت و ژئوفیزیک دانشگاه صنعتی شاهرود
4 - کارشناس ارشد استخراج معدن دانشکده مهندسی معدن،نفت و ژئوفیزیک دانشگاه صنعتی شاهرود

Received: 2016-09-05 Accepted : 2016-09-05 Published : 2013-12-22

Keywords: Underground Coal Gasification (UCG), Tabas Coal Basin, Syngas, Clean Energy,

Abstract :

The Underground Coal Gasification (UCG) is a candidate process for converting the world’s coal resources intoenergy, liquid fuels, and chemicals. In the UCG, the process involves the injection of steam and air or oxygeninto an underground coal seam and igniting and burning of coal in-situ to produce the combustible gas. Previousstudies showed that many parameters affect site selection of UCG design. These characteristics including coalseam properties (thicknesses, depth, dip, resources, rank), faulting, discontinuity, properties of hangingwall andfootwall of coal seam and hydrogeological regime. In this paper, by studying Tabas Mazino coal basin andconsidering proper UCG site selection criteria, potential coal layer was selected for the UCG based on theControlled Retraction Injection Point (CRIP) method. The result of this investigation showed that the M2 coalseam has the highest rank (considering the seam thickness and reservoir) for the UCG operation in Mazino coalbasin in relation to other coal seams namely, M1,M5,‌M4‌and‌M2-1.