2011
INTERNATIONAL MINING FORUM 2011
18
Letter from the Chairman of the Organizational Committee
Letter from the Chairman of the Organizational
Committee
In 1996 coincident with the proceedings of the 5th School of
Underground Mining, the biggest mining conference in Po-
land, a book entitled “The extraction of thin coal seams” was
published. It summarized one of the Conference’s sessions,
attended by speakers dealing with the subject from several
countries.
The topic has since been covered on more than one oc-
casion. Appeals have been made to change the prevailing
approach to thin seams and to continue with the search for
suitable extraction technologies and techniques – at that time
thin coal seams comprised in excess of 30% of intrinsically
economic resources and nearly 30% of economic reserves
in place. In the foreword to the aforementioned publication
it was said: “The crucial task for the coming years remains
the search for new thin coal seam extraction technologies.
A broad international co-operation would immensely enhance
the chance for its positive outcome. Let us hope it will materi-
alize and this meeting is the frst small step in this direction”.
The objective of conference, the eleventh in the cycle of the
International Mining Forum series, is to demonstrate the up-
to-date Polish and international experience in the area of thin
coal seam mining.
The implementation of plow technology in Poland is done
by young engineers for whom the automated extraction sys-
tem presents itself as a great challenge pinpointing the di-
rection of future developments – a production mining face
manned by a skeleton crew, fully utilizing the potential offered
by the information technology. They create new ways and
means of running the production processes, which are suc-
cessfully used together with the new generation plows. Suc-
cessive generations of young mining engineers entering their
careers are equipped with a new type of ability and, most of
all, awareness which is characterized by a new understand-
ing of reality, in which “real” is what is on the screen. They
are the guarantee that this direction of research and the drive
towards minimizing human involvement in underground pro-
duction will receive increasing focus and will remain the area
of development.
The experiences to-date of three mines (KWK „Zofówka”,
KWK „Jas-Mos”, LW „Bogdanka” SA) show that there is a real
potential for Polish companies to join in the research aimed at
developing new plow installations.
We believe the conference is the perfect summary of ac-
tions-to date taken both in Poland and all over the world in
terms of implementing plow technology in mining.
Chairman of the Organizational Committee
Artur Dyczko