Jamalganj Coal field is the largest underground coal deposit placed in Jaypurhat district. I tried to include some information about the coal field. I made the slide for my course presentation purpose.

1. JAIPURHAT, BANGLADESH
By Md. Muzahidul Islam
Dept. of Geology & Mining (BU)

2.  INTRODUCTION
 STRATIGRAPHY & STRUCTURE
 COAL SEAMS DEPTH & THICKNESS
 COAL RESERVE
 SUITABLE MINING METHOD
 PROSPECT ANALYSIS
 CASE STUDY
 CONCLUSION

3. Jamalganj coal field is located in Jaipurhat district in the vicinity
of Jamalganj town .
Jamalganj coal field was discovered in 1962 by Geological
Survey of Pakistan.
10 wells were drilled in that area of Jaipurhat district and coal
seams were encountered in 9 wells within depth of 640 to 1158
meter. The area of coal deposit explored by the nine bore holes
has been estimated at about 37 sq.km .
Following the discovery of the coal field , several international
consultants opined that the coal of Jamalganj coal filed is not
economically viable due to unfavorable depth of the coal seams.

4.  The lower gondwana formatuion of
permian age contains seven coal
layers interfingering with hard sand
stones and a few amount of shale &
conglomerate.
 This coal bearing lower gondwana
formation overlying by upper
gondwana formation of Triassic
time, jaintia group of Eocene,
jamalganj formation of Miocene to
Oligocene, Dupitila formation of
pliocene, Madhupur formation of
pleistocene and recent alluvium
deposite respectively.

6.  The coal field is situated in the Bogra shelf unit of tectonically
stable Precambrian platform.
 Coal occurs in a typical half-graben basin within the precambrian
crystalline basement.
 The basin is bounded to the north by an east-west trending major
fault known as Buzrak-Durgadah boundary fault.
 To the south another major east-wast down to the south fault is
present while smaller faults occur to the south eastern part of the
explored area.
 The coal beds has been affected by several faults , but there is no
evidence of any folding the Gondwana rocks including coal beds.
 It has been suggested that the extent of the basin was originally
much greater but had been eroded later time. Remnant part
preseved within the fault bounded basin.

7. Figure: Map showing structural features of Jamalganj coal field

8.  There are seven coal seams in the coal field.
 The shallowest coal seam occurs at depth of 614 meter
below the surface.
 The depth of coal seam range from 641 to 1126 meter.
 The coal seams range in thickness from 2 meter to more
than 46 meter.
 Coal seams (3) and (7) are two most important coal layers
in terms of thickness, lateral continuity and reserves.
 Coal beds generally dip 5-10 degree but in some observed
places dips up to 15 degrees are recorded.
 More gentle dips are observed in few bore holes.

9.  Jamalganj coal is classified as low sulfur high volatile
bituminous coal.
 Rank may increase to south and east (Haque 1988).
 The coal seams 1 to 5 are high volatile bituminous ‘B’ rank
coal and seams 6 and 7 are high volatile bituminous ‘A’
rank coal.
 The coal has average sulfur content of 0.65% .
 Average ash content of 22.4% to 24.2%.
 Average volatile matter of 36% .
 The average calorific value of the coal is 11878 Btu/lb to
12100 Btu/lb (holoway & bailey 1995) .

10.  Jamalganj coal field has a total coal reserve of 1054 million
tons ( Fried krupp 1966)
 Seam 1 has been ignored into this reserve estimate due to
its poor development.
 Coal seam 3 contains about 527 million tons or about 50%
of the total reserve.
 Coal seam 7 contains about 374 million tons or about 35%
of the total reserve in the Jamalpur coal field.

11. COAL SEAM NUMBER RANG OF THIKNESS
(m)
After Rahman & Zaher
(1980)
COAL RESERVE
(million ton) after
M/S Fried krupp (1969)
1 1.5 m to 2.6 m ignored
2 2.5 m to 12.4 m 39.5
3 4.2 m to 46.8 m 526.8
4 4.5 m to 24.7 m 32.4
5 2.6 m to 20.9 m 30.0
6 2.6 m to 10.9 m 50.8
7 3.1 m to 15.8 m 374.4
TOTAL RESERVE 1053.9

12.  Whereas all coal seams are contained from 614 m to 1126 m
below the surface and there are no coal seam has been
encountered within 300 meter.
• So there are no possibility for open pit mine.
• Ultimately underground mining method can be applicable
in future depends on market value.
• Long wall as well as Room & pillar mining method both are
extensively used world wide.
• So long wall or Room & pillar mining method could be
applied in Jamalganj coal field.
• But Long wall mining method has some advantages over
Room & pillar method.

13.  Longwall has better resource recovery (about 80%
compared with about 60% for room and pillar method)
 Fewer roof support consumables are needed.
 Higher volume coal clearance systems.
 Minimal manual handling and safety of the miners is
enhanced by the fact that they are always under the
hydraulic roof supports when they are extracting coal
 It also recover more coal from deeper coalbed than does
room and pillar mining
 The coal haulage system is simpler, ventilation is better
controlled, and subsidence of the surface is more
predictable

14.  Due to relatively greater depth of coal compared to other
fields in the area, Jamalganj coal mining ( either open cast or
underground) is not considered economically viable under
the present technical and economic context of the country.
 Preliminary study on the prospect of CBM development in
the Jamalganj coal filed has outlined positive criteria in favor
of the CBM development (Halloway & Baily 1995).
 Preliminary assesments are based on the reports by Ahmed
and Zaher (1965), Fried krupp (1966), Powel Duffryn
technical services (1969) and Roberson Research
international (1976).
 So Underground Coal Gasification (UCG) method can be
used to extract CBM

15.  UCG is a method of converting un-worked coal into a
combustible gas.
 The gas can be processed to remove its CO2 content , thereby
providing a source of clean energy with minimal green house
gas emissions.
 The basic UCG process involves drilling two wells into the
coal, one for injection of the oxidants (water/air or
water/oxygen mixtures) and another well some distance away
to bring the product gas to the surface.
 The product gas is a combustible syngas containing
hydrogen, carbon monoxide, and methane.
 High pressure break-up of the coal with water (hydro
fracturing), electric linkage etc. have been used word wide.

16.  Currently, two different methods of UCG have evolved and
are commercially available.
1. The first is based on technology from the former Soviet
Union and uses vertical wells and a method such as
reverse combustion, to open up the internal pathways in the
coal. Vastly tested in Australia by using air & water as the
injected gases.
2. The second method, tested in European and American coal
seams, is to create dedicated inseam boreholes, using
drilling and completion technology adapted from oil and
gas production. It has a moveable injection point known as
CRIP (controlled retraction injection point) and uses oxygen
or enriched air for gasification.

17. Figure: Under ground Coal Gasification Method ( Reverse combustion type)

18.  The coals that fall somewhere in between the brown coals and the
anthracite coals are attributable to the most favorable ones for
methane production. This kind of coal is deposited in Kuzbass
(Russia) and Jamalganj coal field.
 Kuzbass is distinguished from the rest of Russia’s coal basins and
may reasonably be considered as the world’s largest among the
explored CBM basins.
 The basin’s forecasted methane resources are estimated at over
13 trillion cubic meters.
 These estimates are given for the coal and methane resources
deposited at a depth of 1,800–2,000 meters.
 In 2003 Gazprom launched a project to estimate the possibility
of commercial CBM production in Kuzbass.
 Annual CBM production in Kuzbass will be 4 billion cubic meters
at the plateau period and 18 to 21 billion cubic meters in the long
run.

19.  Jamalganj coal field is not commercially viable right
now due to unfavorable depth of coal seams , present
technical limitation and economic context of the
country. But CBM can be produced in future from this
coal field.
 It requires a sophisticated, steady, well developed plan
and design.
 Government should take a sustainable and pragmatic
step to recover CBM from the beneath of Jamalganj
coal field.

20. 1. Energy resources of Bangladesh (Badrul Imam)
2. UNDP final report 2009
3. https://www.gazprom.com/about/production/extraction
/metan/
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longwall_mining
5. http://en.banglapedia.org/index.php?title=Jamalganj_Co
al
6. Kikuo MATSUI, Dr. Eng., Professor
Department of Earth Resources and Mining Engineering,
Faculty of Engineering, Kyushu University