Page 40 - New Trends In Coal Conversion

8 New Trends in Coal Conversion

In the Cenozoic era, the existing conditions for the formation of coal were favor-
able, and thus in all the above mentioned regions it is possible to find exploitable
coal deposits (mainly lignite) with the exception of South Africa.
It should be mentioned that in some African countries such as Angola, Botswana,
Ethiopia, Tanzania, Niger, etc., there are some coalfields of different ages whose
coals are of variable quality. There are various reasons for which these coals have
not come onto the international market. In some cases, these coal deposits are little
known or have not been worked yet, whereas in other cases the coals are only used
locally or their disadvantageous geographical position does not allow them to be
exported.
Potential future coals are in the process of being formed from peat that is accumu-
lating in present-day mires, peat swamps, etc. (Fig. 1.1).

1.4 Coal reserves, production, and consumption

Coal is widely distributed around the globe, and its total proved reserves (BP, 2017),
which can be defined as those amounts that geological and engineering information
indicates with a reasonable degree of certainty that can be recovered in the future
from known reservoirs with the economic and operating means available, are shown
in Fig. 1.6. From the total coal reserves (BP, 2017), 71.6% corresponds to anthracite
and that of bituminous coal rank, whereas subbituminous coal and lignite represent
28.4%. The coal reserves of anthracite and that of bituminous coal rank are mainly
concentrated in the Asia Pacific region followed by those located in North America
(United States, Canada, and Mexico), Europe, and Eurasia. On the other hand, the re-
serves of subbituminous coal and lignite are mainly concentrated in Europe, Eurasia,
and the Asia Pacific region, with much lower concentrations in North America. The
regions of the Middle East and Africa as well as those located in South and Central
America contain the lowest known reserves of all the coal ranks (Fig. 1.6).
According to the World Coal Association (2018a), there are an estimated of 1.1 tril-
lion tonnes of proven coal reserves worldwide. Therefore there are enough coal re-
serves for the next 150 years at current production rates. This is a significant
difference with respect to the proven oil and gas reserves that are estimated to last
around 50 and 52 years, respectively, at current production levels.
Worldwide coal production (including all ranks of coals) is illustrated in Fig. 1.7.
According to the data on coal production in 2016 released by Enerdata (2017), Asia
is the most prolific coal producer, of which China is the largest producing country.
On the other hand, despite a decline in coal production of about 9%, China still pro-
duces 44% of the total coal production in the world. After China, the next most impor-
tant coal producing countries (from 800-to-200 Mt) were successively India, the
United States, Australia, Indonesia, Russia, and South Africa, with Germany and
Poland producing between 200 and 100 Mt. The rest of the countries produced well
below 100 Mt during 2016.
Up to 2013, there was a substantial increase in the production of coal, mainly due to
the increase in the production of this natural resource in countries of the Asia, Pacific,