Overview of Ground Control Research for Underground Coal Mines in Indonesia

Takashi Sasaoka
Department of Earth Resources Engineering, Kyushu University, Japan
Hideki Shimada
Department of Earth Resources Engineering, Kyushu University, Japan
Akihiro Hamanaka
Department of Earth Resources Engineering, Kyushu University, Japan
Hiroshi Takamoto
Department of Earth Resources Engineering, Kyushu University, Japan
Kikuo Matsui
Department of Earth Resources Engineering, Kyushu University, Japan
Suseno Kramadibrata
Department of Mining Engineering, Institute Technology Bandung, Indonesia

Abstract
Indonesia is the second largest coal exporter to Japan, accounting for about 30 M tons annually. They
produced about 250 M tons in 2010, over 99% of which being from open-cut mines. However, the
conditions of surface mining are becoming worse each year: the stripping ratio is increasing, approaching
the economic ratio and the infrastructure for coal transportation from inland mining areas is insufficient
for such intense mining operations. To meet the demand for coal in Indonesia and the rest of the world,
underground mines have to be developed. At present, there are only five small underground mines, three
of which are old and the other two have only recently begun mining operations. However, severe ground
control problems have been occurring regularly, roof falls in particular. Unfortunately, mining engineers
and/or miners in this mine do not have a lot of experiences, expertise and know-how concerning the
operations of underground coal mines.

Under these situations, since 2001, Japan has started a ‘five-year plan for coal technology transfer’ to fill
Japan’s moral obligation as the largest coal importer in the world. The research team was organized and
conducted on-site investigation in order to develop new underground coal mine in Indonesia.

This paper describes the geotechnical issues for development of underground coal mine in Indonesia.
Keyword: underground mine; weak rock property; poor geological condition; mining system, support
system
 COAL MINING INDUSTRY IN INDONESIA
Indonesia is currently the world’s sixth largest coal-producing country. Figure 1 shows the coal production
in Indonesia. Indonesia’s coal industry has experienced tremendous growth with coal production. They
produced about 300 M tons of coal, about 75% of which was exported in 2009 (Coal Asia, 2010). As the
Indonesian government has decided on an energy policy wherein 33% of the country’s primary energy
will be met by coal by the year 2025, the domestic demand for coal has increased dramatically in recent
years.

Now, over 99% of which being from open-cut mines and there are only a few underground coal mines and
their total coal production is less than 1 M tons (Indonesian Coal Mining Association, 2010). However,
the conditions of surface mining are becoming worse each year: the stripping ratio is increasing,
approaching the economic ratio and the infrastructure for coal transportation from inland mining areas is
insufficient for such intense mining operations. To meet the demand for coal in Indonesia and the rest of
the world, underground mines have to be developed.

Figure 1. Coal production in Indonesia

CHARACTERISTICS OF COAL MEASURES ROCKS IN INDONESIA

Most of the coal deposits are concentrated in Sumatra and Kalimantan. The stratigraphy
comprises sediments that are typically found in deltaic and shallow marine depositional
environments, such as sandstone, clays and shale. These young formations are weak, with the
measured rock strengths being much lower than that encountered inn most mined coal measure
rock in the world. Coal measures rock consists of silt stone, mudstone, shale, clay stone,
sandstone, etc, and its mechanical properties are generally weak and deteriorated due to water.
Especially, the rock which contains smectite is very sensitive to water. Figure 2 shows the
histogram of uniaxial compressive strength of recovered core (saturated) in KPC coal mine. This
figure shows that the strength of coal measure rocks is very weak. Figure 3 represents the slaking
characteristics scored by means of the evaluation method (Sadisun, et al, 2004). It can be said
from this figure that the slaking index increases with increasing the amount of smectite contents.

Figure 2. USC of core samples in KPC coal mine Figure 3. Relationship between slaking index
and smectite content (Sadisun, et al, 2004)

From these results, it can be said that the deformation/closure behavior of roadways are affected
not only by ground pressure but also by weathering /slaking phenomenon due to underground
water and moisture supplied by ventilation. Generally speaking, the strength of coal in Indonesia
is larger than that of coal measure rock and it is about 10-20 MPa, which is almost as same as that
in Japan.

HEADING AND SUPPORT SYSTEM

Drivage and support system for roadway is one of the important factors for underground coal mine. As
drill and blasting method is generally applied in small scale mine, mechanized drivage system is applied in
some of the middle-large scale coal mines. For example, in Ombilin coal mine, roadheader was used for
drivage of entries and roadways in soft rocks, and Dosco-MKII and AM50 were applied for drivage of
entries for longwall panels. Originally, the steel/wooden sets and/or steel arch have been used as support
systems. Bolting system has been introduced from Australia since 1994. However, deformation and/or
failure behaviors of roadways cannot be controlled only by bolting system in case that development rate is
slow and the roadways/entries has to be maintained for longer time, and then additional support had to be
installed. Now, the steel arches becomes to be a major support system again instead of bolting system and
this facts indicates that the term of maintaining roadways/entries has an obvious impact on the stability of
roadways supported by bolts.

MINING SYSTEM
Appropriate mining system has to be selected based on the geological conditions such as depth, thickness,
dip and number of coal seams, existences of faults and groundwater, stress condition, etc. Mining system
can be classified into three types: manual mining system, semi-mechanized mining system and
fully-mechanized mining system. Two major mining systems are longwall and room/bord-and-pillar
mining systems in the world. If the geological and geotechnical conditions are appropriate, a longwall
mining system with shield supports is much more effective, safer and productive than other mining
systems. Figure 4 shows the typical longwall face with double range drum cutter, shield supports and
armored face conveyor. Now, these equipment become to be big and powerful in order to increase the
production more economically and efficiently. In the case of thin coal seam which thickness is about 1.5m
or less, the fully-automatic plow mining system which consists of plow, shield supports and AFC has been
developed in German and introduced in Europe, U.S. and China (see Figure 5).

Figure 4. Longwall face Figure 5. Plow mining system (Caterpillar, 2011)

In Indonesia, Ombilin coal mine had introduced a fully mechanized longwall mining system. However,
the productivity is much lower than that expected. This is because of the dramatic change of coal seam
conditions and unfixable face control. Prop and cap mining system has been introduced in the other
underground coal mines as shown in Figure 6. From the points of views of productivity, safety and
economically, usual fully mechanized longwall mining system or bord-and-pillar mining system by using
continuous miner or roadheader should be discussed for their introduction. Drivage system with a
continuous miner and roof bolt support system has been introduced in Indominco Mandiri by
Australian contractor, and coal extraction has been conducted by means of bord-and-pillar mining
system with BLS (Garcia, 2010). In the future, as this mining system may be introduced in
small-middle scale underground coal mines, the advantage of this kind of fully mechanized
mining system may be cancelled in case that the dip of coal seam is very steep and the
characteristic of floor rock is very low.

Figure 6. Prop and cap mining system (Biron and Arioglu, 1982)

In case of thick coal seam which is more than 5m in thickness, LTCC system has already been
introduced in China and Australia, and this kind of new technology may be introduced in
Indonesia. Figure 7 shows the scheme of LTCC method.

Figure 7. Scheme of longwall top coal caving method (Wu, 1997)

SAFETY AND ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUE UNDERGROUND COAL MINES IN INDONESIA

A plenty of accidents had been occurred and a great many lives has been lost in underground mining
operation. It can be said that the current ground control technique is developed with great loss of life.
Today, although many advanced technology have been introduced in underground coal mining industry,
many fatal accidents still occurs.

Even though the advanced and/or high capacity support systems and monitoring systems have been
introduced, roof/rib falls in the face and roadway have still been one of the greatest hazards in
underground coal mining operation. This is because of the poor/weak mechanical properties of
surrounding rocks and high ground pressure.

In Indonesia, the characteristics of coal measure rocks which include silt stone, shale, sand stone, clay
stone are very weak and lower than that of coal. As mentioned above, their characteristics are deteriorated
dramatically due to water, and some of them represent the slaking phenomena. This fact is strongly related
to the slope stability of surface coal mines in Indonesia with a lot of rain. In underground coal mines, the
deterioration of characteristics of surrounding rocks may be occurred due to the underground water and/or
the inflow of rainfall from portal. This may cause a severe deformation of roadways and roof /rib falls.
Especially, this phenomenon occurs remarkably in the case of deep mining operation or the increase of
ground pressure due to mining operation.

The in-situ stress condition has to be known in order to appropriate mine plan or design of roadway and
support system. Unfortunately, as the data of in-situ stress condition in Indonesia is not sufficient enough,
the investigation should be conducted rapidly.

Gas outburst, rock burst, wind blast, spontaneous combustion, gas/coal dust explosion, mine fire, and
mine-flooding become to be serious disasters in underground mines. In order to prevent these disasters in
advance, geological conditions of coal, roof and floor have to be well-known. At coal mines in Japan, the
geological changes and/or anomaly recognized around the entries and heading face such as the change of
geological conditions, the existence of faults, underground water, had been recorded. This technique can
not only prevent expected accidents but also help to investigate the cause of accidents occurred. Hence,
this system should be introduced in Indonesian underground coal mines. Especially, during surface
operation, the information of coal seam and geological conditions should be recorded as the database. This
database may be great help for designing mine plan, production plan, support system, mining system, etc.

Generally speaking, it can be said that the impact of underground mining operation on the environment is
smaller than that of surface one. However, the impact of underground mining operation on the
surrounding environment cannot be disregarded in case of wide extraction area. Surface subsidence due to
miming operation often becomes to be a big issue in underground coal mines. Cave-in due to mining
operation often occurs at shallow mining depth, especially this phenomenon occurred remarkable during
the rainy season. In the case that longwall mining operation is conducted at relatively deep mining depth,
the subsidence basin is formed at the surface as shown in Figure 8. If the magnitude of subsidence is large,
it has obvious impact on the surface buildings. It can be said that the prevention of these environmental
disruption caused by mining is a responsibility for mining engineers.

Figure 8. Final subsidence basin (Peng and Chiang, 1984)

FUTURE WORKS
The characteristics of coal seam condition in Indonesia are, thin seam, multiple seam, and steep dip. As
the shovel and truck method is mainly applied for surface mining operation in Indonesia, in most coal
mines, the mining operation can be conducted under any geological conditions without problems.
However, the geological conditions have an obvious impact on the underground mining operation. For
example, if the dip of coal seam is larger than 25 degree, as most of the current advanced systems may not
work, new system should be developed and introduced for the underground mines in Indonesia. In the
case of multiple thin coal seams, it may be impossible to extract thin coal seams one by one by
underground mining system. In this case, multi thin seams should be mined at once and then the coal
grade has to be controlled by coal preparation technique. If these options cannot be applied, the coal
resource is abandoned or the underground coal gasification (UCG) technology should be developed and
introduced (see Figure 9). Hence, the research for development and utilization of coal seam which cannot
be mined by using conventional underground techniques should be promoted in Indonesia.

From now on, the global energy demand will be strained. So, it can be expected that the energy demand of
Indonesia is increased and the importance of coal will also increase. Now, over 99 % of coal produces
from surface coal mines. However, the conditions of surface mining are becoming worse each year. The
amount of coal from underground mines will be increased in the near future. The development of
underground coal mine should be a small impact of environment and safe. So, Japan should support
Indonesian coal mining industry from financial, technical and talent points of view.

Figure 9. Underground coal gasification (UCG Association, 2011)

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors would like to express their gratitude to New Energy and Industrial Technology Development
Organization (NEDO) and Japan Coal Centre (JCOAL) for their support in this research.

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