Technical Oil and Gas Institute, Sakhalin State University, Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Russia:

A. A. Verkhoturov, Senior Lecturer, Chair of Geology and Oil and Gas Technology, ussr-91@mail.ru
V. A. Melkiy, Director, Doctor of Engineering Sciences

Coal industry is the oldest mineral mining branch both in the Sakhalin Region and in the whole Russian Far East. Since its initiation and up till now, the industry branch preserves leadership together with the oil and gas industry and production of aquatic biological resources. The article gives a brief history of the coal industry in the Sakhalin Region. Petrography, chemistry, performance capability and other characteristics of the mineral are described. The quality of coal is analyzed. It is emphasized that Sakhalin coal features high quality and different properties and, for this reason, enjoys high demand as power-producing fuel, and in the long view, it can become a high-grade raw material for production of metallurgical coke, synthetic liquid fuel, hydrocarbon gas and other coal-chemical products. The authors inform on the coal reserves and resources in the region. The most often used method to extract coal is open pit mining, while the amount of known reserves recoverable with the stripping mining method is small as compared with the geological reserves and totals 169.9 Mt. Major portion of the reserves occurs at such deposits as Solntsevskoe, Vakhrushevskoe, Novikovskoe, Gornozavodskoe, Tikhmenevskoe, Verkhne-Armudanskoe and Tikhonovichskoe. The state-of-the-art of the coal industry is reviewed. The industry follows different lines of development in the recent decade. Rates of coal mining gradually grow. The highest increase is being observed since 2013. In 2016 9.96 Mt of coal was produced, which was the absolute maximum for the whole history of the industry. This production rate is supported by 14 operating open pit mines. Finally, the article identifies the most acute problems the coal mining industry is now faced with in the region.

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