The Raspadskaya Coal Mine is a

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when dea ...

mine located in

Mezhdurechensk Mezhdurechensk (russian: Междуреченск) is the name of several inhabited localities in Russia. ;Urban localities *Mezhdurechensk, Kemerovo Oblast, a city in Kemerovo Oblast; administratively incorporated as a city under oblast jurisd ...

Kemerovo Oblast Kemerovo Oblast — Kuzbass (russian: Ке́меровская о́бласть — Кузба́сс, translit=Kemerovskaya oblast — Kuzbass, ), also known simply as Kemerovo Oblast (russian: Ке́меровская о́бласть, label=non ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

. It is the largest coal and the largest underground mine in Russia. The mine was opened in 1973 and its construction was completed in 1977. In addition to the main

underground mine Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the economic via ...

, the mining complex also includes MUK-96 underground mine, Raspadskaya Koksovaya underground mine, and Razrez Raspadsky

open-pit mine Open-pit mining, also known as open-cast or open-cut mining and in larger contexts mega-mining, is a surface mining technique of extracting rock or minerals from the earth from an open-air pit, sometimes known as a borrow. This form of mining ...

, as also the Raspadskaya preparation plant. The mine is the largest coal mine in Russia. Raspadskaya's total resources were estimated at 1,461 million tons and total coal reserves at 782 million ton (JORC standards, according to IMC Consulting report as of June 2006, of which 22 million tons produced by 31 March 2008). Based on the volume produced in 2007,

reserves-to-production ratio The reserves-to-production ratio (RPR or R/P) is the remaining amount of a non-renewable resource, expressed in time. While applicable to all natural resources, the RPR is most commonly applied to fossil fuels, particularly petroleum and natural gas ...

amounts to about 55 years of production. The complex produces 10% of Russia's

coking coal Metallurgical coal or coking coal is a grade of coal that can be used to produce good-quality coke. Coke is an essential fuel and reactant in the blast furnace process for primary steelmaking. The demand for metallurgical coal is highly coupled ...

. The mine is owned and operated by Raspadskaya OAO, a Russian publicly listed coal company. In March 2001, a methane explosion killed four miners and injured six. The mine was shut down for two weeks in 2008 due to safety violations and a worker was killed after part of the mine collapsed in January 2010. On 8 May 2010, an

explosion An explosion is a rapid expansion in volume associated with an extreme outward release of energy, usually with the generation of high temperatures and release of high-pressure gases. Supersonic explosions created by high explosives are known ...

occurred killing 66 workers.Сенатор нашел в волнениях в Междуреченске "оранжевый след"
18 May 2010. Lenta.ru Accessed 26 June 2010. In 2022, a

remote sensing satellite An Earth observation satellite or Earth remote sensing satellite is a satellite used or designed for Earth observation (EO) from orbit, including spy satellites and similar ones intended for non-military uses such as environmental monitoring, me ...

found that the mine was releasing 87

metric tons The tonne ( or ; symbol: t) is a unit of mass equal to 1000 kilograms. It is a non-SI unit accepted for use with SI. It is also referred to as a metric ton to distinguish it from the non-metric units of the short ton ( United States ...

, or 95

short tons The short ton (symbol tn) is a measurement unit equal to . It is commonly used in the United States, where it is known simply as a ton, although the term is ambiguous, the single word being variously used for short, long, and metric ton. The vari ...

, of

methane Methane ( , ) is a chemical compound with the chemical formula (one carbon atom bonded to four hydrogen atoms). It is a group-14 hydride, the simplest alkane, and the main constituent of natural gas. The relative abundance of methane on Eart ...

each hour. Scientists who study methane leakage said the size was unprecedented. By contrast, the worst rate that occurred at the

Aliso Canyon gas leak The Aliso Canyon gas leak (also called Porter Ranch gas leak and Porter Ranch gas blowout) was a massive natural gas leak in the Santa Susana Mountains near Porter Ranch, Los Angeles, California. Discovered on October 23, 2015,Sharon McNary ( ...

in California was 60 metric tons an hour.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Raspadskaya Coal Mine Coal mines in Russia Coal mines in the Soviet Union