Energy Bangla - Open Pit Mining: Challenges & Benefits

One of the major challenges the energy sector is facing is to find out ways how to economically exploit its substantial high quality coal reserve .The predominantly mono fuel –Natural Gas dependent power generation is in limbo. The proven gas resource is widely believed to be exhausted in not too distant future. For confusion and panic set in by inexperienced ill motivated theoreticians and absence of strong political commitment government could not take decision of appropriate mining strategy to economically exploit coal resource. The deficit is widening. The ensuing summer will witness massive load shedding.

The just installed democratic government will face serious embarrassment for failures of incompetent last political and immediately past Care Taker Government. Of the 5 discovered ca coal mines the Jamalgonj coal is at greater depth which can not not be mined in traditional mining methods. Coal at Khalaspeer and Dighipara are also at relatively greater depth. Barapukuria and Phulbari coal are at relative shallower depth. The geology makes these ideal for open pit surface mining which is in practice in the following countries now.

Australia, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Indonesia, India Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, Mongolia, Namibia, Peru, Portugal, Russia, South Africa, United Kingdom, United Sates and Zambia. Any mining has environmental and social impacts. Every infrastructure development process, exploration and extraction of resources have various risks as well as safety, health impacts. But technology is continuously addressing the to confront manage and mitiagate the risks and impacts. With all basic fuel resources coal still dominates the energy generation options. The situation of Bangladesh must not remain different. Our known coal reserve is believed to be 70TCF equivalent while our proven natural gas is about 13 Tcf, half of which is already consumed. What should we do? Should we not try and exploit the coal resource adopting the most appropriate mining method, adopt modern technology to address the related environmental and social impacts? Or should we continue to suffer from prevailing and emerging energy crisis?

Bangladesh which has limited capacity to purchase petroleum products from volatile world oil market can not continue to keep its fortune buried underground forever? It can not also remain confused triggered from myths and ill motivated propaganda of a vested group. The disadvantage is most of our innocent people as well as policy makers do not have much knowledge of mining. There is no scope of learning mining technology in Bangladesh also. During Pakistan days sons of well to do persons who could not get admissions in Ahshanullah Engineering College used to go to Lahore to study mining. This group of mining engineers worked in Gas sector in absence of mining activities in Bangladesh. They could neither become good miners nor good gas engineers. Rather for their control other professionals got frustrated and many left gas sectors. Many mining engineers created controversy in Gas Sector also. There were few outstanding mining engineers as well. But no all of them retired. But unfortunately none of them were included in drafting coal policy.

Bangladesh let a Chinese company start underground mining at Barapukuria. Many mining experts felt the existing geology can never make underground mining technically viable or economically feasible there. Still a vested group of BNP government from 1991-96 allowed to start Barapukuria mining under suppliers credit. Experts now feel that there were several juggleries in the project approval process. It now appears that proper risk assessments of Bapaukuria mining were not done. The possible and probable subsidence impacts were not anticipated and no actions were foreseen to address those impacts. Now after a more that one and a half decade of trouble tone mining with several major set backs at various stage mine subsidence impacts are now visible which may puts future of mining uncertain.

BHP Billiton, the leading Mining Company of the world was given mining lease at Phulabri where very thick seam bituminous coal is lying at shallow depth. At some stage of survey and assessment it transferred lease to Asia Energy Corporation. (AEC) UK.AEC carried out extensive survey, carried out some exploratory drillings, completed extensive Environment Impact Assessment studies. Then it submitted a comprehensive study to Government of Bangladesh in January 2005 after meeting all the contractual requirements. The development plan included surface mining methods. It included proper relocation and rehabilitation plan of the affected people. Bangladesh was due to approve to reject the development plan within the contractual time frame. Engr.Mahmudur Rahman was advisor to PM on Energy at that time. Without realising contractual obligations he started blaming all previous government on certain contentious issues.

He engaged a so called Energy Expert to review the Phulbari mining matters. This gentleman stepped out of his assigned responsibility and agitated the people of Phulbari over AEC proposed open pit mining.BNP government should have done community consultations to pacify the situation. But a very arrogant Mahmud let situation go out of control .The local agitation led to unfortunate situation when some innocent misguided local people were killed.

The local situation was to be controlled by signing a compromise agreement by Mayor Rajshahi and MP. This irrelevant piece of paper was signed with a legally unrecognizable organisation. Now based on this the agitators are demanding to scrap AEC contract , banning open pit mining etc, etc & etc. Any sensible person will realise that such an agreement has no legal bearing in dealing with a contract signed between a sovereign government and an international company.

Any contract includes a termination clause. It requires one party to establish default of the other party with evidences. It also requires the party notifying default of the other party to give them to defend its position. If Bangladesh ventures to terminate the AEC contract then this will obviously go to arbitration. Bangladesh will invariably loose and will have to pay huge compensation. Can one realise what will be the consequence of Bangladesh FDI scenario?

Now let us try to discuss open pit mining.
The author is taking primary lessons in mining from experts .So at this stage thought it wise to share some of materials the author is learning with readers many of whom are not experts like many in Bangladesh.

Open pit mining as defined in open encyclopaedia states, “Open pit mining, also known as opencast mining, open –cut mining, and strip mining, refers to a method of extracting rock or minerals from the earth by their removal from an open pit or borrow. Open –pit mines are used when deposits of commercially useful minerals or rock are found near the surfaces, that is where the overburden (surface material covering the valuable deposit) is relatively thin or the material of interest is structurally unsuitable for tunneling .For minerals that occur deep below the surface –where overburden is thick or minerals occurs as veins in hard rock – underground mining methods extract the valuable material.

Open pit mines are typically enlarged until either the mineral resources are exhausted, or an increasing ratio of overburden to ore makes further mining uneconomic. When this occurs, the exhausted mines are sometimes converted to landfills for disposal of solid wastes. However some form of water control is usually required to keep the mine pit from becoming a lake.

Extraction
Open Cut mines are dug on benches, which describe vertical levels of the hole. These benches are usually on four meter to sixty meter intervals, depending on the size of the machinery that is being used. Many quarries do not use benches, as they are usually shallow.

Most walls of the pit are generally dug on an angle less than vertical, to prevent and minimize damage and danger from rock falls. This depends on how weathered the rocks are, and the type of rock, and also how many structural weaknesses occur within the rocks, such as a fault, shears, joints or foliations.

The walls are stepped. The inclined section of the wall is known as the batter, and the flat part of the step is known as the bench or perm. The steps in the walls help prevent rock falls continuing down the entire face of the wall. In some instances additional ground support is required and rock bolts, cable bolts and concrete are used. De-watering bores may be used to relieve water pressure by drilling horizontally into the wall, which is often enough to cause failures in the wall by itself.

A haul road is situated at the side of the pit, forming a ramp up which trucks can drive, carrying ore and waste rock.

Waste rock is piled up at the surface, near the edge of the open cut. This is known as the waste dump. The waste dump is also tiered and stepped, to minimize degradation.
Ore which has been processed is known as tailings, and is generally a slurry. This is pumped to a tailings dam or settling pond, where the water evaporates. Tailings dams can often be toxic due to the presence of unextracted sulfide minerals, some forms of toxic minerals in the gangue, and often cyanide which is used to treat gold ore via the cyanide leach process.

Rehabilitation:
After mining finishes, the mine area must undergo rehabilitation. Waste dumps are contoured to flatten them out, to further stabilize them. If the ore contains sulfides it is usually covered with a layer of clay to prevent access of rain and oxygen from the air, which can oxidize the sulfides to produce sulfuric acid, a phenomenon known as acid mine drainage. This is then generally covered with soil, and vegetation is planted to help consolidate the material. Eventually this layer will erode, but it is generally hoped that the rate of leaching or acid will be slowed by the cover such that the environment can handle the load of acid and associated heavy metals. There are no long term studies on the success of these covers due to the relatively short time in which large scale open pit mining has existed. It may take hundreds to thousands of years for some waste dumps to become "acid neutral" and stop leaching to the environment. The dumps are usually fenced off to prevent livestock denuding them of vegetation. The open pit is then surrounded with a fence, to prevent access, and it generally eventually fills up with ground water. In arid areas it may not fill due to the deep groundwater levels.

Environmentalists in all countries oppose mining; oppose burning of coal. But nowhere they can ride over policy makers to keep mining suspended for years when the energy security is compromised by not adopting economic mining method as is the case in Bangladesh. In this context it will not be out of place to discuss almost a similar situation in Malaysia – a country having almost similar geographical, geological and environmental situation like Bangladesh.

A paper titled “Benefits & issues of Open-Cut Coal mining on the Socio-Economic Environment –The Iban Community in Mukah, Sarwak, Malaysia.” Of Dr W Edward Liam General Manager CA (Malaysia), CPA (Australia) may be a useful reference here.

GENESIS Force Sdn Bhd (GFSD), a company incorporated in Malaysia was granted a General Prospecting License (GPL) to prospect for coal in Mukah Division, Sarawak, Malysia in 2005.and to date, GFSB has successfully identified (intensive exploration) a proven mineable reserve of 48.2 million metric tonnes of coal, classified as Sub-Bituminous “B”. The said proven coal field is located of approximately 9,400 hectares of secondary jungle and shifting agricultural land. The company practices open pit mining system.

Geographical Location:
The Mukah Coalfield is bounded by Batang Mukah on the west and Bantang Balingian on the east and is situated on the low lying coastal plain of Mukah Division. The coal field is located approximately 20km to the southeast of Mukah town with a geographical position of 112 o 20 ‘E and 2o 45 ‘N.

Topography & Drainage :
The area is drained by six major river systems. They are upper part of Sungai Penipah at the west, Sungai Beklian Mati and upper part of Sungai Bedengan Kanan at the north, Sungai Bakau at the east, Sungai Bawan at the southeast and Sunagi Nyatau at the southwest. The tributaries of upper part of Sungai Penipah and Sungai Nyatau drain the areas to the west and southwest respectively. These rivers are usually grown with mangroves trees, reeds or marshes.

Climate:
The tropical climate of the Mukah Coalfield is characterised by high temperature and rainfall.Muka has recorded annual rainfall averaging 3508mm ( 12 years average) and rainy season is from September to March and dry season from April to August. The climate is typically tropical, characterised by hot, humid and wet situation.The average day and night temperature is 33.9 o C and 29.4 o C respectively.

Vegetation and Land Use:
Due to intense logging activities in the last decade only small part of Mukah –Balingian area is still covered with primary forest. Peat swamp is typical in the lower parts located mostly in the north and lowland secondary forest in the higher parts. The arable lands are farmed and planted with rice, pepper, corn and fruits. Two large oil palm plantation covering a total of 54 km 2 can be found in the Southern part of the coal field.

Population:
Mukah division has an estimated population of 50,000 with Iban community settling in most part of the division in scattered and isolated longhouses. There are 72 long houses in the area with most of them concentrated along the Mukah-Selangau trunk road that connects Mukah Division by land to Sibu (the third largest town in Sarawak .The Iban are mostly small scale farmers and practise shifting cultivation.

The Chinese community is mainly concentrated in Mukah, Belingian and Selangau town areas. They are mainly traders and oil palm plantation workers. The Melanau community, being the third largest group in Mukah division mainly settle along town and coastal areas, and is principally involved in the coastal fishing industry.

Focus of Discussion :
The Mukah coal field is located on land that traditionally belongs to the Iban community, known as Native Customary Rights (NCR) land. Such land is without title but is recognise by the authorities as land handed down from generations. With the commencement of coal mining operations by GFSB, the Iban Community owning the land on the Mukah Coalfield stands to gain financially. GSFB compensate a standard amount of RM3, 000 (US$ 817 per acre) to acquire the rights to acquire coal from their land and thereafter to rehabilitate the said land before returning them to NCR landowners. Further where possible, GFSB will employ the NCR landowners to work for the company as mining crew and watchmen.

Benefits :
The existence of the open-pit mine, in Mukah have proven to be a blessing to the Iban community because:
 They benefitted directly from the land compensation given by the said mining company for rights to mine on their land. Evidence can be seen from the fact that many of the long houses locating on the Mukah Coalfield have utilised the money to upgrade their longhouses and to purchase other necessities to enjoy comfort of modern living.
 Through employment received from the said mining company , the community can supplement their shifting cultivation income by the more consistent monthly wages earned working as mining crew and
 A As they are expose to the usage of modern equipment , they are able to accelerate their assimilation into modern world of 21st century and this will augur well for the Iban community in general specially for the younger generation.

Issues :
The Iban community in general is driven by the instinct to live a simple life of a shifting cultivation farmer and rearing domestic animals for consumption. The advent of the mining industry and the influx of excessive cash into the community have resulted in emergence of two damaging social ills to community .These two damaging social ills are:
 Many of the male members of the community have indulged in excessive habitual drinking, especially in the consumption of locally brewed alcohol popularly known as “langkau” or equivalent of “moonshine” in United Sates of America. This potentially health damaging habit has resulted in many of the men being too intoxicated to work resulting in disciplinary actions being taken against them and lost their daily wages and
 Driven by their desire to enjoy trappings of modern living , many of the Iban families will go to great length to ensure that their homes are equipped with the latest modern conveniences ( such as hot water system, home theatre system, new cars etc) to the point where they are heavily in debt. Such situation resulted in severe hardship being experienced by the Iban community, and they are left at more precarious position than they were before the advent of “convenient” money gained from coal mining industry.

What to Do?
The issues facing the Iban community are not going to disappear if the authority closes a “blind-eye”. Sweeping it “under the carpet” is also not going to solve the problem as it will only delay the inevitable situation where the issues will explode in the communities in Mukah, in particular, and Sarawak in general. The recommended actions are
 The leaders of Iban Community must work closely with the Government to formulate an education program for their community to assist them to acquire the skills of living in the modern world of 21st century, where attractions are unlimited whilst financial resources are limited. Such concepts of modern living must be taught to them to ensure that the trappings of modern living will not become an anchor that will drag them down. Moving from a simple life of shifting cultivation to earning and living in a modern community will not only ad pressure and stress to their emotion, it will also cause them to be disoriented. Given the fact that the Iban community forms nearly a third of the population of Srawak, it will be a waste of valuable human resources to the State if the community is to disintegrate because of the inability to manage the stress of modern life.
 The various NGOs affiliated to the Iban community must play more active part in assisting the community to cope with the challenges of modern living. Paying lips service and blaming the Government and private sector for improving the standard of living of the community, through more financial benefits, which have been abused by the community and led to their degeneration of social and economical performance will not solve the problem, only concrete and positive actions can.
 The local Iban community leaders must be given the correct training and support so as to be able to use their influence to educate their community in the art of modern living .This will assist the community to avoid the pitfalls of the 21st century.

Conclusion:
The open cut mining project in Mukah have brought substantial benefits to the local community and the State of Srawak, through such contribution as Royalties to the sate for extraction of coal, a better standard of living for the local community through direct and indirect employment and a general increase in business for the local businesses in Mukah Division.

As in any new industry there is bound to be issues relating to socio-economic factors and where possible Genesis Force Sdn Bhd have given its full assistance to ensure that the coal mining industry in Mukah is managed using sustainable coal mining principle where responsibilities are emphasized on “minimum disruption to the environment during extraction and total land rehabilitation (including planting crop cover) after closure of a particular mining site.

Lessons to be learnt for Bangladesh:
There seems to be lot of similarities of Mukah region of Malaysia with our Phulbari, Barapukuria region. We can definitely try to learn lessons and try to replicate the good works. Malaysia is not very far from Bangladesh. Government can organise sending its officials, mining professionals, environmentalists to eye witness the mining activities, and management of social and environmental impacts of open pit mining. It is not a rocket science. We talk about digital Bangladesh. We still do not know what open pit mining is. Silly and ridiculous to keep our fortune buried while nation continues to suffer from serious energy crisis.