Vietnam's Vinacomin starts exploration at major coal basin in Red River Delta
Hanoi (Platts)--22 Sep 2015 257 am EDT/657 GMT
Vietnam National Coal Mineral Industries Holding Corp Limited, better known as Vinacomin, on Monday kicked off a government-approved project to explore coal reserves in the northern basin of the Red River Delta, the company said late Monday.
The first phase of the project comprises exploration drilling in an area of 5.29 sq km (3.5 square miles) in Tien Hai district at Thai Binh province until September 2017.
More than 500 samples of coal with 300 rock samples and 240 samples of coalbed methane will be taken for analysis.
Under the second phase that will run from September 2017 to March 2019, data obtained in the first phase will be analyzed and put into a final report to submit to a government council for approval.
The goal of the project is to evaluate geologic structure, coal reserves and quality as a basis to select suitable production technologies and set up a trial project before commercially mining the basin, Vinacomin said.
The coal basin, believed to lie beneath the northern Red River Delta region, stretches over an area of 3,500 sq km (1,351 square miles) crossing the four northern provinces of Thai Binh, Hung Yen, Nam Dinh and Phu Tho. Coal reserves at the basin are estimated at 210 billion mt.
Vinacomin, Australia's Linc Energy and Japan's Marubeni signed a business cooperation contract in 2008 to jointly undertake a trial underground coal gasification project in Hung Yen, also located in the Red River Delta basin.
In 2012, Vinacomin said the government had not approved the project because it might need to reassure local residents on how to handle the depression issues.
Linc Energy said on its website the three partners remain committed to the project and Linc will continue to work with the other partners during the approval process for the project.
--Dao Dang Toan, [email protected]
--Edited by Irene Tang, [email protected]
Add to My Watchlist
What is My Watchlist?