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Post by tygwyn on Mar 7, 2014 20:47:50 GMT -5
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Post by cortonwood on Mar 8, 2014 14:09:31 GMT -5
they did those photos just after I left.The pit is now shut,drifts stopped off and most of the pit top flattened.
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Post by Wheldale on Jul 8, 2014 12:30:09 GMT -5
I finally got an email back today about the proposed mine. I asked the following questions in the original email.
1. With the seam section being narrow will you be mining above and below the seam to gain some head height or will you just be mining the seam section?. 2. Is the market for your coal the power stations or will some of the coal be for domestic use? 3. As the proposed site was originally planned as an opencast site how come it was never worked as an opencast site?
The answers are
1. Just mining the seam section (using a low profile CM), we'll rip out the floors for the roadways only. 2. We expect around 85%+ to be power station coal with the rest being lump.. we won't know for sure how much until we get into the coal. Internally, bets vary from 0-15%, with most of us reckoning it'll be in the 5-10% range. 3. The opencast question is very interesting. Bill was the resident engineer on the Anglers West site and, as you've correctly identified, the site we're on was going to the Anglers West Site. The main reason for british coal not pursuing it was the relatively high stripping ratio which would have resulted in a not inconsiderable mountain of spoil (the opencast would have taken out 10M tonnes of coal). The feeling was that the MPA just wouldn't have entertained an application on that scale in the green belt, so BC just focussed on developing other easier sites.
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Post by tygwyn on Jul 8, 2014 18:35:14 GMT -5
Interesting reply Wheldale, With their mention of ripping roadway floors,and low profile CM`s in the face,does this mean shuttle car`s are been replaced with belts?or a combination of belts in the face and Shuttles in the roadways to drift bottom?
The 85% to the Power Station is a bit ominous,unless they get started soon before Kellingley and Thorsby close,that output will get taken up by Foreign coal.
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Post by Wheldale on Jul 9, 2014 10:29:44 GMT -5
There's a link here www.fsb.org.uk/072/assets/croftonmineproposal.pdfIt says they will be using shuttle cars and conveyor belts. I sent another email asking about old workings in the area. They reckon there isn't any to be a problem. I also asked them if there were any objections to the mine from environmental groups of which there were not. On the website it says planning permission was granted in June so hopefully things will be moving along soon.
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Post by colly0410 on Jul 9, 2014 15:03:15 GMT -5
Thanks for the links, very interesting..
I presume they are starting with room & pillar to keep the start up costs down... My cousin who lives in North Somercotes might get some decent coal now instead of the imported rubbish his coal merchant flogs..
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Post by Wheldale on Jul 9, 2014 15:54:11 GMT -5
Well they are a community mine and community is a buzz word at the moment. It will be interesting to see this mine develope.
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Post by tygwyn on Jul 9, 2014 18:00:33 GMT -5
There's a link here www.fsb.org.uk/072/assets/croftonmineproposal.pdfIt says they will be using shuttle cars and conveyor belts. At the start i understood that the drifts would be belts and shuttle car`a feeding the belts,but this mention of ripping bottom on the roadways,is this to extend the main belts when the roadways gain distance?or do they have a soft bottom that would cause problems for the shuttles?
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Post by andyexplorer on Jul 10, 2014 2:53:03 GMT -5
I find it very interesting the idea seeing that the chief engineer is a TORY,now if i remember right i thought they shut all are pits. A little bet here its not going to happen not if Crofton people have anything to do with it. If you research it , you will find that the labour government shut far more pits that Thatcher These are the figures for the sharply declining number of coal mines open each year under those Labour Governments. 1964 545 1965 .. 504 1966 .. 442 1967 .. 406 1968 .. 330 1969 .. 304 1974 .. 250 1975 .. 241 1976 .. 239 1977 .. 231 1978 .. 223 1979 .. 219 These are the figures for the Thatcher years: 1979 .. 219 1980 .. 213 1981 .. 200 1982 .. 191 1983 .. 170 1984 .. 169 1985 .. 133 1986 .. 110 1987 .. 94 1988 .. 86 1989 .. 73 1990 .. 65
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Post by andyexplorer on Jul 10, 2014 3:10:46 GMT -5
I find it very interesting the idea seeing that the chief engineer is a TORY,now if i remember right i thought they shut all are pits. A little bet here its not going to happen not if Crofton people have anything to do with it. If you research it , you will find that the labour government shut far more pits that Thatcher These are the figures for the sharply declining number of coal mines open each year under those Labour Governments. 1964 545 1965 .. 504 1966 .. 442 1967 .. 406 1968 .. 330 1969 .. 304 1974 .. 250 1975 .. 241 1976 .. 239 1977 .. 231 1978 .. 223 1979 .. 219 These are the figures for the Thatcher years: 1979 .. 219 1980 .. 213 1981 .. 200 1982 .. 191 1983 .. 170 1984 .. 169 1985 .. 133 1986 .. 110 1987 .. 94 1988 .. 86 1989 .. 73 1990 .. 65 Politicians of all colours have had plenty of time to reverse the trend of pit closures but NON of them have invested a penny in coal mining for decades
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Post by Wheldale on Jul 10, 2014 14:48:47 GMT -5
I think that another way of looking at the closures is this. In the 60's oil/gas/nuclear started to replace coal leading to closures, same as when diesel replaced steam on the railways. Then post strike mines were closing but coal was still being used, only being imported. We are using the same amount of coal now as we were 25 years ago. That to me says that the torys effectively closed the industry as there was still a market for the pits that were closed.
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Post by dazbt on Jul 11, 2014 16:22:51 GMT -5
I've dug out two books about the area of the new mine, coals from sharlston and the history of over 850 years of mining at nostell. As the last book suggests their is a long history of mining in that small area, makes me wonder if they will encounter any old workings. I've emailed the company proposing the mine with a few questions, I don't know if they will email me back but will post on here if they do. wheldale, what is the name of the fourth seam that is mentioned in the CCCP reports likely to be?
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Post by Wheldale on Jul 11, 2014 16:34:57 GMT -5
The four seams are all sharlston seams, namely Sharlston Top, Sharlston Low, Sharlston Muck and Sharlston Yard.
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Post by dazbt on Jul 13, 2014 3:47:26 GMT -5
The four seams are all sharlston seams, namely Sharlston Top, Sharlston Low, Sharlston Muck and Sharlston Yard. Thanks wheldale. I'm a bit surprised that the Shafton Seam isn't present and workable around that area, do any of the books (information) you have researched from show the listed seams extracted at the Angler's Opencast?
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Post by Wheldale on Jul 13, 2014 5:10:55 GMT -5
To be honest I've not looked at the Anglers opencast site. I asked the fella at the new mine about old workings in the area, this was his reply.
"The two areas (north & south) are divided by a fault which drops around 30m. Our intention is to mine the Sharlston Top, Low & Muck together and then the Yard in the North, then extend the drift down into the south and repeat the process.
We've got a 50m standoff from the Nostell workings to the North, though they do undermine the pithead but at a significantly greater depth than our workings so there's no concern about penetrating them. Sharlston & Walton are way off to the North. Our Eastern boundary is demarcated by the Anglers East opencast site (the big lake) and the coal seams go deep at the faults at our southern edge so we end there.
So, no, we don't expect to encounter any old workings in the take. There was actually some shallow opencast in the SE corner of the take in the 90's, but at that corner the shallowest we are is about 100m, way below the surface disturbance."
With the Anglers site being their boundary, maybe Anglers worked the Sharlston group of seams??
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Post by tygwyn on Jul 13, 2014 7:12:50 GMT -5
When you mention the company is going to work the Top,Low and Muck seam`s together,are you meaning these 3 seams are so close together they will be taking all 3 at once including the muck bands or do you mean the 3 seams will be worked separately together ,all coming out on the main belt,at different levels on the drift?
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Post by dazbt on Jul 13, 2014 8:01:00 GMT -5
To be honest I've not looked at the Anglers opencast site. I asked the fella at the new mine about old workings in the area, this was his reply. "The two areas (north & south) are divided by a fault which drops around 30m. Our intention is to mine the Sharlston Top, Low & Muck together and then the Yard in the North, then extend the drift down into the south and repeat the process. We've got a 50m standoff from the Nostell workings to the North, though they do undermine the pithead but at a significantly greater depth than our workings so there's no concern about penetrating them. Sharlston & Walton are way off to the North. Our Eastern boundary is demarcated by the Anglers East opencast site (the big lake) and the coal seams go deep at the faults at our southern edge so we end there. So, no, we don't expect to encounter any old workings in the take. There was actually some shallow opencast in the SE corner of the take in the 90's, but at that corner the shallowest we are is about 100m, way below the surface disturbance." With the Anglers site being their boundary, maybe Anglers worked the Sharlston group of seams?? I seem to recall that the Angler's Opencast worked 5 seams in total, I couldn't guarantee that but I do know it was one of the deepest opencasts in the UK at the time. During the strike a seam of coal about 1.2m was worked at a shallow depth just west of the Top lake in the old railway cutting, I always believed that was the Shafton Seam but again I could be wrong. There is also a very thin seam of coal that actually outcrops within the Top Lake at its Eastern end very close to where the Angler's Opencast started.
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Post by Wheldale on Jul 13, 2014 13:09:00 GMT -5
I looked at the BGS borehole scans. There was a borehole close by that came with the following seams, Top Shafton Low Shafton Sharlston top Sharlston Low Sharlston Yard Houghton thin.
Maybe one of these?? The Top Shafton was 1.6 meters at a depth of 26 meters.
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Post by tygwyn on Oct 17, 2014 16:28:35 GMT -5
Has this Colliery started yet?
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merlin
Shotfirer.
prop and lid
Posts: 64
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Post by merlin on Apr 28, 2015 13:09:36 GMT -5
dont how you can trust roofbolts give me rings anytime
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Post by John on Apr 28, 2015 13:37:26 GMT -5
dont how you can trust roofbolts give me rings anytime Roofbolts have a good track record, if they are installed correctly, they provide a solid roof over your head. One of the things was to install them as soon as possible to prevent bed separation.
I worked under roof "supported" by roofbolts for years. I've seen bolts shear through stress, seen some that handn't been installed correctly and pushed out. You have to understand how they work, before you can have faith in them...LOL They bolt the strata together to form a rigid "girder" supported by the sides, pillars or whatever. Usually, if one fails, the Manager will order the whole area to be rebolted again.
One colliery I worked in, in NSW, used a fixed bolting pattern, together with "W" straps and steel, usually reject railway rails from our steelworks, which had a hardwood prop either side for extra support. The other colliery I worked at in NSW, just used bolts, props were set to hang cables and fire fighting lines down.
Boulby Mine in North Yorks used bolts and mesh, plus bolted the ribs, but that only started after two fatalities in an unforeseen accident. We also used steel in certain roads down there, but with convergence, the steelwork soon got twisted. In potash the roof "crept" at a measurable rate. Unlike coal, where usually everything stabilized on main roads after a time, in potash it kept going until a/ the road closed up, or 2/ it was continually back ripped.
No, I felt safe under bolted roof, I to was brought up under steel arches, two legs, two legs and a crown and full 20 foot diameters.
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Post by smshogun on May 20, 2015 7:06:28 GMT -5
It was the EU who closed the coal mines and I have posted this on this site so people can do their own research.
They did this through environmental emissions and Labour simply ratified them into UK legislation without actually researching their implications.
Phase 1 was simply to introduce environmental emissions standards so low and so disjointed that it didn't affect anything, so basically nobody noticed them or their implications.
Phase 2 was to introduce additional environmental measures to connect the disjointed existing measures into groups.
Phase 3 was to join the groups by introducing additional legislation to join these groups together, and remember by this stage we had lost our power of veto due to other legislation, so couldn't refuse them.
Stage 4 was to tighten the existing measures for emissions now they had a fully jointed system of environmental controls in place which we couldn't veto, and now we see them applying everywhere and motor vehicles are the most obvious to everyone.
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Post by dazbt on Sept 16, 2015 7:55:32 GMT -5
So, what point are they at with the Crofton project? Seems that they now have the "development funding capital" but seem to be putting out mixed messages about finalising The Community Development Plan; "Raise Capital to fund the development Completed Finalise Community Development Plan In progress Form Community Foundation In progress Appoint contractor to construct the surface infrastructure Completed Construct the mine drifts to the Sharlston Top Coal Seam Not Yet Started Finalise Community Development Plan Not Yet Started Commence mining Not Yet Started"
www.newcroftoncoopcolliery.co.uk/the-mine/project-progress/?doing_wp_cron=1442406891.5950059890747070312500
Any updates Wheldale?
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Post by Wheldale on Sept 16, 2015 10:53:38 GMT -5
The word on a couple of forums is that the project has been shelved due to current coal prices.
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Post by dazbt on Sept 16, 2015 16:03:20 GMT -5
The word on a couple of forums is that the project has been shelved due to current coal prices. I suppose that shouldn't have come as any great surprise.
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Post by smshogun on Sept 16, 2015 21:01:52 GMT -5
Just a few thoughts, a good contact of mine who advises the power industry stated a couple of years ago that they may well start coaling operations again in the UK, but would face massive opposition from the EU as they want coal eliminated.
His thoughts were that we can run diesel engines on powdered coal with a quick and cheap conversion, this would be for larger diesel engines.
World powers would try to limit the amount of crude oil coming to the UK so fuels from coal would potentially make a comeback for fuels such as petrol or diesel. What's been in the news in the last couple of days? a warning about diesel pumps running dry in the UK.
With the current crisis in Europe with immigrants we could face an uncertain EU which may potentially lead to the break up of the EU, and we are reliant upon the EU countries for our gas, or at least a large proportion of it.
WE are currently connected to the EU electricity supergrid and if the EU breaks up we will have an electricity shortage, there have been warnings about this for months as the "alleged environmentally friendly" sources have cost taxpayers a fortune and failed to deliver.
Coal will give us oils, petrol, and diesel; it will give us town gas, it will give us electricity, it will give us security and guaranteed supplies totally independent of the EU but it does rely on the break up of the EU, so are some politicians seeing which way the wind is blowing and preparing for what they know is inevitable?
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Post by bolter on Sept 25, 2015 19:25:48 GMT -5
I reckon one of the major practical problems will be installation of roof-bolts long enough to maintain support given the operational height available.
As Strata-Control Engineer for South Yorks BC, I once designed and 'hands-on managed' a face salvage at Frickley Colliery, Haighmoor seam, using coupled bolts. The first such operation in BC, and before RMT/Bretby came on the scene. The coupling sleeve acted as a piston and compressed the resin installed prior to bolt insertion. Consequently, the mudstone/shale roof support was excellent, indeed on several bolts the lower section was unscrewed and removed to improve clearance, without problem. It can be made to work, but is obviously slower and more complicated. I also specced-up a twin boom Fletcher low profile drill-head machine for a bolted salvage at Silverwood Colliery, which worked acceptably well apart from a haulage and indexing problem. We ended up on that job using Boart hydraulic rigs and the early Wombats which I bought in from Australia to finish the job. Celtite/Exchem subsequently took up the commercial licence for importing the Wombat, and the rest as they say is history. Incidentally, bearing in mind their reliance on antipodean expertise in this respect, I always thought it strange that BC took up C/A leg bolters to such an extent when Australia was already moving away to 'Bolter-Miners', but anybody who recalls that particular part of BC history will remember my campaign to introduce BMs. My first BM was a modified Joy 12CM18 at Bentley, but that would not be any use at all in low seam heights like this.
vbr Chris A {Mr Bolt }.
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Post by dazbt on Jan 22, 2016 7:45:44 GMT -5
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Post by Wheldale on Jan 22, 2016 8:34:13 GMT -5
It's good news. Maybe this will be the future for a while? I bet there's quite a lot of pockets of coal about that can be worked like this?
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Post by John on Jan 22, 2016 9:13:50 GMT -5
I hate to be a pessimist, but I can't see any project in coal going any further than the drawing board for a few years, oil is at the lowest price per barrel in over 20 years, coal price per ton has dropped through the floor, remember BigK?? Closed early due to record low steam raising coal prices?? World economy is collapsing, stock exchange indices are hitting 2008 levels!!
I know of several stock advisers hinting on a depression worse than the 1930's, all the pointers are dead set against new coal projects moving forward, China's economy is getting hit by drops in exports. Lets face it, we have more unemployed than ever in history.
Most of us on here know the Australian coal industry, US coal industry is in a shamble because nobody wants coal, Indonesia has closed down most if not all coal mining operations, no markets.
The best you can hope for are small hand got mines producing for a local market at present. Lets be realistic, any large coal projects will be hit with EU carbon taxes, which will add to the cost of a ton of coal...Coal is dead, to steal a statement from Brassed Off...
Still, it's nice to dream of what was, happy memories!
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