Content maintained by Ron Sait
Brown Coal |
AIMR 2009 |
Brown Coal
Brown coal or lignite is brownish-black in colour and has a high moisture content of up to 66%. Brown coal deposits occur in all Australian States with a substantial world class deposit in the Gippsland Basin of Victoria. Currently, brown coal is mined in Victoria only and is used mainly as a feedstock for power stations in the Latrobe Valley. Energy Brix Australia produces briquettes for industrial and domestic heating and Australian Char Pty Ltd produces low ash and low sulphur char products. A brown coal fertiliser product is produced at the Maddingley mine.
Resources
Recoverable economic demonstrated resources (EDR) for 2008 was 37.2 Gigatonne (Gt) which was slightly less than in 2007 as a result of production losses. Recoverable paramarginal demonstrated resources (PDR) decreased about 0.5% to 38.8 Gt because of reassessment by Blackham Resources of the Scaddan deposit. Subeconomic demonstrated resources (SDR) remained unchanged at 16.3 Gt. Recoverable inferred resources increased about 0.2% to 101.1 Gt following the reassessment at the Scaddan deposit. Victoria accounts for 96% of Australia's identified resources of brown coal. All EDR is located in Victoria and about 93% of the total EDR is located in the Latrobe Valley.
Accessible EDR
Approximately 86% of brown coal EDR is accessible. Quarantined resources include the APM Mill site, which had a 50 year mining ban applied in 1980. Other quarantined resources include the coal under the Morwell township and the Holey Plains State Park. The resource life of the accessible EDR of 32.2 Gt is about 490 years.
JORC Reserves
No brown coal resources are JORC Code compliant. However, Geoscience Australia estimated reserves at the operating mines from published information to be about 4.8 Gt. The resource life of published reserves is estimated to be about 70 years.
Exploration
Data relating to exploration for brown coal specifically are not available nationally.
Production
Australian brown coal production for 2007-08 was 66 million tonnes (Mt), all from Victoria. The Latrobe Valley mines of Yallourn, Hazelwood and Loy Yang produce about 98% of Australia's brown coal. Locally significant brown coal operations occur at Anglesea and Maddingley.
World Ranking
Australia has about 25% of world recoverable brown coal EDR and is ranked first. Australia produces about 8% of the world's brown coal and is ranked as the fifth largest producer after Germany (20%), China (11%), the USA (9%), Russia (9%) and Greece (8%).
Industry Developments
Environmental Clean Technologies Ltd: Construction of a 150 kilotonne per annum (ktpa) Coldry commercial demonstration plant is due to commence in 2009 in the La Trobe Valley. The Coldry process is a low pressure technology which expels 95% of the water from brown coal to produce a dense high energy pellet.
Loy Yang Power: A $6.3 million Mechanical Thermal Expression (MTE) pilot plant was tested in 2007-08. The MTE process allows more than 70% of the water in brown coal to be removed with the potential to significantly reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions when the dry coal is burnt to generate electricity. In January 2008, Loy Yang Power signed an agreement with EESTech Inc to undertake a feasibility study into carbon capture at the Loy Yang power station.
LaTrobe Lignite Developments Pty Ltd (LLD): A 25 tonne per hour test and development plant is planned to be constructed to demonstrate a brown coal densification technology that removes water to produce a low moisture coal.
HRL Ltd and Harbin Power Equipment Group Corporation: The partners plan to construct a 400 megawatt (MW) integrated drying gasification combined cycle power station in the La Trobe Valley. The $750 million project is expected to start operating in 2012.
Monash Energy: In December 2008, the Shell Group and Anglo American postponed the proposed $5 billion coal to liquids project in the Latrobe Valley.
International Power plc: The $370 million Hazelwood 2030 Project envisages retrofitting low emission technology to the Hazelwood power station in the Latrobe Valley. Developments include demonstration of a RWE Energy AG technology which uses a fine grained fluidised bed drier with an integrated waste heat recovery system to reduce water content from 60% to 12%. The Hazelwood 2030 project also involves the construction of a 25 tonne per day pilot carbon capture plant with chemical sequestering of the carbon. BioMax fuel trials in which some carbon dioxide is converted into biodiesel and ethanol using algae are continuing at Hazelwood.
Exergen Pty Ltd: A continuous hydrothermal dewatering technology which removes moisture and contaminants from brown coal was trialled at a pilot plant at Beaconsfield in Tasmania.
Victorian Government: In May 2008, the Victorian Government committed $127.4 million to clean coal development. The commitment includes $110 million to establish a carbon capture and sequestration demonstration project, $5.2 million to investigate carbon storage sites in the Gippsland Basin and $12.2 million to establish Clean Coal Victoria.
Australian Energy Company: In June 2008, the company announced a $2 billion project for the Latrobe Valley to convert brown coal into urea. From 2012 about 1.2 Mtpa of urea fertiliser is expected to be produced along with 135 MW's of electricity.
Spitfire Oil Ltd: A 3.5 Mtpa open-cut mine at Salmon Gums in Western Australia is planned to be developed to provide feed to a coal-to-liquids plant producing about 7.3 million barrels of oil and distillate per annum mainly for the Kalgoorlie market.
Hybrid Energy Australia: A feasibility study is being conducted into a coal to liquids plant located at Kingston in South Australia. The FuturGas Project plans to use about 3.2 Mtpa of open-cut coal to produce 3.7 barrels of synthetic fuel per annum and 40 MW of low emission electricity.
