Delineation of Gas Prospective Sites in the Donets Basin, Ukraine

摘要

In the course of the past century, the Donets Basin (Donbas) has been in the focus of geological interest mostly of an enormously high potential of its coal Carboniferous deposits and also because of its proximate adjacency with the Dnieper-Donets Depression, one of the most mature oil and gas provinces of Ukraine. In recent years a significant wave of new interest to geology of the Donets Basin has arisendramatically from results of independent estimations obtained by several investigating entities about an impressive coalbed gas resource potential of coal-bearing measures in a range of 12-27 trillion m3. Almost the all coal fields of the Donets Basin excluding most eastern regions are characterised by high coal bed methane content (from 8-10 to 25-37 m3/t). In spite of serious diminishing of annual coal production methane emissions into atmosphere occurring from operating mines and sites of closed mines in the Donets Basin are still in range of 2 billion m3 of methane per year. The commercial benefits of coal bed methane extraction from the prospective sites of the basin are unquestionable and this is evidenced by the successful installation of pilot local drainage or "degasification" systems at some of the gassiest underground mines.