The Resources of Oil-rich Coals in China

Abstract The resource characteristics of coal-rich, oil-deficient, and low-gas have determined the need to fully exploit the advantages of coal resources in China. China holds a large amount of low-rank coal with high volatile content and high tar yield. Based on the abundant oil-rich and low-rank coal resources, resource evaluation and research on its development and utilization are of great significance to the coal geology. According to the estimated reserves, the low-rank coal reserves are about 63.86 billion tons. Among the low-rank coals, the tar yield is greater than 7%, which is called oil-rich coal. Gas and semi-coke resources, which can greatly increase the application value of this type of coal resources. The oil-rich coal resources are widely distributed in the Carboniferous-Permian, Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous, and Neogene in China. They are mainly distributed in the three provinces of Inner Mongolia, Shaanxi, Xinjiang, and also Qinghai and Gansu in space. The Carboniferous-Permian oil-rich coal is mainly distributed in Shaanxi Fugu mining area, and the Triassic oil-rich coal is mainly distributed in the Zichang mining area of Shaanxi Province. It shows that the oil-rich coals are mainly lignite and long-flame coal with low metamorphism but also contains a small amount of gas coal and gas-fat coal. The tar yield and volatile content generally have a positive correlation. It has great significance to further study on the oil-rich coal resources.