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Assessment of Mercury Releases from the Russian Federation

Annex 3 Mercury in Coal from the Main Basins

The data presented in Tables 1-14 below are taken from: Valuable and Toxic Elements in Commercial Coal of Russia: Reference Book. – Moscow: "Nedra" Publishers, 1996. – 238 p. (Russian State Company "Rosugol"; Russian Committee on Geology and Use of Subterranean Resources).

This Reference Book is the outcome of specialized work and is based on materials of revision testing of commercial products of coal sector enterprises in the country over 1988-1991. To justify and control the obtained results, testing data were used for the period of 1960-1970. Totally, this databank includes analyses of 13,500 samples of commercial coal not only for mercury, but also for other 25-50 chemical elements. Testing of coal was effected in conformity with the nomenclature of commercial products of coal enterprises. With all other conditions being equal, ordinary coal types were preferred. At enterprises producing only quality coal, the investigation included the sorts of coal that were dominant among the coal types brought from the mines. This work was based on survey of specially supplied group samples characterizing products of the specific coal enterprises over a maximum possible period of time. At such enterprise, they took at least three group samples belonging to the same technological group (brand) and correspondent to the product quality for at least one calendar month. In turn, each group sample includes 3-15 or even more primary coal samples (depending on the specific geological and production situation and other conditions). Primary samples included sample duplicates taken by the Technical Control Department and by coal and chemistry laboratories of respective coal enterprises so as to assess quality of coal shipped to the user (in particular, they used: sample duplicates characterizing the current provision of coal to coal enterprises; samples taken from average monthly samples made p of samples of current provision and characterizing products produced by the enterprise during the month; daily, shift and other samples evaluating current performance of the enterprise). When group samples were compiled, they took into consideration amount of coal shipped to the user, the shares of working coal strata in the mine output and other indicators). The testing periods (periods of formation of the group samples (were from 3 to 12 months. When commercial coal was tested, they used the system of control with rejection of primary coal samples whose ash content was not representative. The primary sample was excluded from the array, if its ash content varied by 10% (relative) from the ash content of the average monthly rated sample. Distribution of mercury in samples was determined using atomic adsorption methods. The above stated allows us to think that data presented in the reference Book about the content of mercury in commercial coal of Russia are representative and very objectively reflect the real distribution of mercury in the main types (brands) of coal in Russia.

Mercury content was determined on a dry basis. The detection limit for mercury by atomic absorption method (% to coal) was 0.00001. Non-detects were treated as 0's.

Table 1 Average content of mercury in commercial coal from Pechora Basin

Notes: Pechora coal basin is a large raw material source for the development of the energy and coke-and-chemical industries; its significant part is located to the north of the Polar Circle; coking means coking coal, en. means energy; technol. means technological; m.m. means mine management; OCC means opencast colliery; unit means mining unit; CE means cleaning (concentrating) enterprise; CCE means central cleaning enterprise; GCE means group cleaning enterprise; CCE means coal cleaning enterprise; conc .means concentrate; scr. means screenings; slr. means slurry; wst. means waste; P means regular; Ï means plate, K means large-size; O means nuts; M means small-size; C – seeds; Ø means coal dust.

Table 2 Average content of mercury in commercial coal from Moskovskiy Basin

Note: Brown coal basin is located in five administrative regions: Tver, Smolensk, Kaluga, Tula and Ryazan. They include mostly oxidized coal with a high ash content, humidity and low strength indicators.

Table 3 Average content of mercury in commercial products from coal-mining and coal-cleaning enterprises of the Eastern Donbass

Note: In Rostov Oblast the Donetsk Basin includes its eastern area, basically anthracite regions: Gukovo-Zverevskiy, Krasnodonetskiy, Sulino-Sadkinsjiy, Tsymlyanskiy, Shakhtinsko-Nesvetayevskiy, Zadonskiy coal fields; a smaller role is played by caking and thin coal regions: Kamensko-Gundorovskiy, Belokalitvesnkiy and Tatsinskiy.

Table 4 Average content of mercury in commercial products from coal-mining of the Kizelovsky Basin

Note: The basin is located between rivers Yayva in the north and Vilva in the south, is about 2150 km long and 5-20 km wide; the coal stratum includes 5 layers and interim layers of coal; of them, only 5 layers are of working thickness; coal brands Ã, ÃÆÎ, ÃÆ and Æ are used as energy and technological raw materials.

Table 5. Average content of mercury in commercial products from coal-mining enterprises of Bulanash-Yelkinskiy coal basin

Note: This basin includes 2 coal fields: Bulanash and Dalne-Bulanash of the upper Triassic age; industrial use is made only of Bulanash field, which occupies the northern part of the Bulanash-Yekinskiy depression; this field includes over 40 coal layers that have been identified; of them, 29 have the working thickness of 0.9 to 4.8 km.

Table 6 Average content of mercury in commercial products from coal-mining enterprises of Chelyabinsk basin

Note: Chelyabinsk brown coal basin is located on the eastern slope of the South Urals within Chelyabinsk Oblast, representing a narrow strip with the width up to 15 km, expended almost parallel to the Ural ridge over 170 km, from Techa River in the north to Uy River in the south.

Table 7 Average content of mercury in commercial products from coal-mining enterprises of South-Ural basin

Note: The South-Ural basin integrates multiple brown coal fields of the tertiary age; located in the Republic of Bashkortostan and Orenburg Oblast; the basin extends along the meridian for 350 km and has the width of 70-80 km.

Table 8 Average content of mercury in commercial products from coal-mining enterprises from Kuznetsk basin

Note: Kuznetsk basin is a large raw material facility for coke and chemical and fuel and energy industries; as regards balanced coal reserves it ranks first in the country; of especial importance is coking coal; this coal makes about half of the total production in the basis; energy types of coal also include the following dominant brands Ä, CC, T, and, to some extent, Ã.

Table 9 Average content of mercury in commercial products from coal-mining enterprises of Buryatia Republic

Note: Brown coal fields are dominant in Buryatia, 11 deposits are known with the balance coal reserves.

Table 10 Average content of mercury in commercial products from coal-mining enterprises in Chita Oblast

Note: The northern coal group includes bituminous coal, brands à – T, Chikoyskaya depression coal is transient, between brown coal and bituminous coal; ash content is 10^-20%; brown coal in the majority of regions have the ash content of 8-25%.

Table 11 Average content of mercury in commercial products from Lenskiy basin

Note: Coal fields of the basin are located basically in Republic of Sakha; undeveloped field Yurung-Tumus (Nordvik) is in Krasnoyarsk Krai; reserves are estimated in 19 deposits; three largest (Kangalasskopye, Djebariki-Hah and Sangarskoy) are developed intensively.

Table 12 Average content of mercury in commercial coal of North-Eastern and Kamchatka regions

Note: Industrial coal regions are related to large geological structures: Zyryanskiy (Sakha Republic) and Arkagalinskiy (Magadan Oblast) coal basins, and vast coal fields of Magadan and Kamchatka Oblasts, i.e. Anadyrskiy, Omsukchanskiy, Elgenskiy and Kamchatskiy. The latter are related to the operated brown and bituminous coal fields, i.e. Anadyrskiy, Ugolanaya, Gapivskoye, Kenskoye, Elgenskoye (lignite) and Korfskoye.

Table 13 Average content of mercury in commercial coal from Khabarovsk Krai and Amur Oblast

Note: These regions include more than 100 known fields and deposits of brown and bituminous coal; in Khabarovsk Krai, the Urgalskoye field is operated (in the eastern part of Bureynskiy basin); bituminous coal, brand Ã; Raychitinskoye and Arkharo-Boguchanskoye fields are located in Amur Oblast, within contemporary Nizhne-Zeyskoaya depression, Raychitinskoye field included operated opencast colliers, brown coal, technological group 2Á; Arkharo-Boguchanskoye field includes brown coal, with the carbonation degree from 1Á to 3Á.

Table 14 Average content of mercury in commercial coal and coal-cleaning products form Sakhalin Oblast

Note: Main coal fields are located in the western part of the island; as regards the degree of carbonation, this coal is brown coal of the technological group 3Á and bituminous coal brands Ä, Ã, Æ,, T; bituminous coal brands are located basically on the western coast of the island, in Aleksandrovskiy and Uglegorskiy coal fields; brown coal is located basically in the central and Southern coal fields; this coal has high quality and diverse properties; it includes a low concentration of sulfur; little or average content of ash (15-25%), the working humidity of brown coal does not exceed 18-20%, of bituminous coal 9-10%; all industrial coal fields in Sakhalin are concentrated in four coal bearing fields: Aleksandrovskiy, Uglegorskiy, Central and Southern.

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Version 1.0 March 2005, © Danish Environmental Protection Agency