Coking coal in the Alberta Plains Region, Canada

Abstract

ABSTRACT In 2010, the author participated in an assessment of the coal deposits on Encana Corporation’s freehold lands in Alberta, Canada. He suggested that coal samples collected from a well in the Alberta Plains region that had penetrated the deep, Lower Cretaceous Mannville Group coal seams should be laboratory tested to determine whether this coal had metallurgical coking properties. Exploration and testing of coalbed methane in these coal seams prior to 2010 had indicated that the rank of this coal, determined using petrographic methods, was understated; however, a higher coal rank, determined using ASTM methods, suggested that these coal seams might have coking properties. Samples of coal cuttings from an approximately 4 m thick seam of Mannville Group coal that intersected in a well located a short distance southwest of Edmonton, Alberta, were sent to a coal laboratory for testing. Proximate and petrographic analyses show that coal from this Mannville Group seam has a rank of high volatile A to B bituminous. A coal marketing consultant reviewed the laboratory results and classified the sample as semi-soft coking coal.