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Stranded coal needs transportation ASRC waits on state and Corps’ transportation plans before developing mine in remote northwestern Alaska Patricia Jones Petroleum News Contributing Writer
The Arctic Slope Regional Corporation is awaiting release of two transportation studies this year before further advancing plans to build a surface-to-underground coal mine on its Kuchiak Mineral Block in the remote northwestern part of Alaska.
“It’s really a lack of infrastructure that is the main challenge,” said Teresa Imm, director of resource development for ASRC, the for-profit Native corporation with land holdings in northern Alaska. “We’re not going to spend a lot of money for a project that is multiple years away from solving the transportation issue.”
Similar to stranded North Slope natural gas, ASRC’s coal resources located in northwest Alaska are vast, yet untapped due to lack of economical transportation.
ASRC has focused efforts, on and off for the last 15 years, Imm said, on the Deadfall Syncline, a well-known geological formation of high quality coal. The corporation has drilled to compile a 68-million ton mineable reserve within Kuchiak at a potential mine site located about five miles from the coast of the Chukchi Sea.
“The coal crops out at the surface…it dips at an angle. It’s not horizontal,” Imm said.
Miners could initially extract surface coal, following the seam downward with eventual underground recovery, she said.
In 1994, ASRC’s subsidiary Arctic Slope Consulting Group started development of a demonstration, underground mine located about a mile from the proposed large mine site. Two portals were driven down to access and extract about 4,000 tons of coal using a continuous miner, according to a state mineral industry report. The project, which also involved Hobbs Industries and the U.S. Bureau of Mines, was designed to demonstrate the viability of coal mining in permafrost.
Quality and quantity of coal is not holding up development, which the Native corporation would like to start mining by 2010. Rather, Imm said, it’s providing an economical way to move coal out of the remote region.
“We’re trying to encourage development of infrastructure that will enhance our ability to develop the resource,” Imm said. “The big issue is infrastructure…the technical challenge of transportation.” DOT, Corps plans expected Two separate governmental plans looking at transportation needs of the region are expected to be released sometime this year, Imm said. Alaska’s Department of Transportation is working on its Northwest Transportation Plan, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is considering expanding seasonal port facilities used by the Red Dog lead and zinc mine.
ASRC will wait for those plans to be released before continuing with a full-fledged feasibility plan for a coal mine, Imm said.
“It’s really tied up in positive economics for transportation. Without that, we are not putting a lot of money into the project, until we have a better handle on transportation,” Imm said.
Whether it’s a road, rail or conveyor system, Imm said the best transportation option seems to involve Red Dog port facilities, located about 150 miles south of the planned coal mine site. Rail won’t work !y¬ ?s not support a 400-mile railroad route plan from the planned coal mine south to Nome, discussed by Alaska Miners Association executive director Steve Borell.
“With a bulk commodity like coal, you want to get it to tidewater as soon as possible. You don’t want a lot of overland movement or you lose the value of the coal,” Imm said. “Our goal is to utilize Red Dog’s port.”
Part of Borell’s plan includes connecting a rail line from the coal fields with the expanded Red Dog port facilities, which would also involve dredging a deep-water channel for ocean-going ships to be directly loaded by a new conveyor system. Coal resource enormous ASRC’s mineable reserve of 68 million tons represents a small fraction of the region’s coal resource.
State and federal geologists have estimated the Deadfall Syncline contains approximately two billion tons of high rank or bituminous coal, according to Jim Clough, energy section chief for the state Division of Geological and Geophysical Services.
That resource estimate is based on past exploratory oil and gas drilling, as well as seismic work that included shallow drilling, Clough said.
“Those sesimic holes were 60 feet deep, and they hit a lot of coals in the shallow portions,” he said.
The high rank western Arctic coal is of premium quality, Clough added, with an average of .23 percent sulfur, three percent moisture and seven percent ash. Heat values are in excess of 12,000 BTU/lb.
Across Alaska’s entire North Slope, hypothetical resource estimates are greater than 3.7 trillion short tons, including both bituminous and subbituminous (lower rank) coal, Clough said.
“Every time it’s been drilled, it proves to be equal to the hypothetical resource, sometimes in excess,” Clough said. “We have an enormous resource of coal on the North Slope, and including the gas in it, it’s even bigger.”
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