Stan rozpoznania złóż węgla brunatnego w Polsce, zabezpieczenie jego wydobycia i wykorzystania do 2000 r. oraz kierunki dalszych poszukiwań

Abstract

THE PRESENT STALE OF KNOWLEDGE OF BROWN COAL DEPOSITS IN POLAND, RECOVERABLE RESOURCES COVERING THEIR EXPLOITATION TO THE YEAR 2000, AND TRENDS IN PROSPECTING Summary The main coal-bearing horizons, important for the fuel-energy economy of Poland, are of the Tertiary age. They include so-called Second, Ścinawa group of coal seams and First, Mid-Polish group of coal seams, dated at the Middle and Upper Miocene, respectively. Brown coals occurring in other series of the Tertiary are without economic value. The area of occurrence of coal-bearing Miocene in Poland is about 150 000 km2• The surveys of about 40% of that area resulted in about 16.4 billions Mg increase of brown coal reserves. The recoverable resources (Polish mining categories B-C2) are 8.8 billions Mg, and perspective resources requiring further geological-prospecting works - 7.6 billions Mg. At present, brown coal mining is of the order of 40 m Mg per year, being primarily carried out in the Turów, Konin and Adamów strip mines. High.ly dynamic developments in brown co al mining and construction of power plants based on that coal, planned for the years till 2000, should result in increase in mining to about 250 m Mg per year. This will be connected with construction of 8 new large strip mines (besides Bełchatów mine) in western and central Poland. The maximum planned production of Bełchatów strip mine by itself is 40 m Mg of coal per year since 1985, and planned increase in output of one of accompanying power plants is about 4300 MW. For the next 20 years there is also planned construction of some plants of hardening and gasification of brown coal as both resources and chemical-technological properties of it are suitable for that purpose. Further geological-prospecting works on brown coal deposits will be carried out mainly in areas and structures of gravimetric anomalies in western, central and northern Poland, which often appeared rich in coals. It is also planned to carry out prospecting in regions characterized by both paleogeographic-facies setting and coal-bearing perspectives of particular lithostratigraphic members indicative of optimum indices of coal resources. Attention will be also paid to the north-eastern Poland where prospecting for brown coal was hitherto carried out with insufficient intensity.