Coal Mining
There are Philippine coals which are of such quality that they can be used by current users without the need for any coal preparation or blending with imported coals. Among these are the coal deposits being mined in Malangas. The PNOC (Philippine National Oil Company) and the TMC its Taiwanese partner operates coal within the Malangas Coal Reservation. It also operates a large-scale coal mine known as the Integrated Little Baguio (ILB) colliery, which is currently the largest semi-mechanized underground coal mine in the country.
In the year 1995, a worst tragedy happened when a huge methane gas explosion ripped through a coal mine tunnel in Malangas town, killing more than 100 people. The blast set off a fireball, which swept through nine kilometers of mines, and setting off other explosives which had been stockpiled inside the tunnel. Ten years later, six miners were killed when a coal tunnel collapsed in Diplahan town.
News about the coal mine in Malangas has been rumored that PNOC-EC may sell mine to San Miguel Corp. According to the news, the Philippine National Oil Company - Exploration Corp. (PNOC-EC) is in talks with diversified conglomerate San Miguel Corp. to sell a coal mine in Mindanao and this is probably in Zamboanga Peninsula where Malangas is located. For 2009, total coal production in Malangas amounted to 91,440 metric tons, a decrease from the 2008 output of 110, 549 metric tons due to major repair and rehabilitation “conducted immediately upon takeover of the mines.” Today, Mining operators are still operating in the coal reservation of the town.
Read more about this topic: Malangas, Zamboanga Sibugay
Famous quotes containing the words coal and/or mining:
“And in their blazing solitude
The stars sang in their sockets through the night:
“Blow bright, blow bright
The coal of this unquickened world.””
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)
“In strict science, all persons underlie the same condition of an infinite remoteness. Shall we fear to cool our love by mining for the metaphysical foundation of this elysian temple? Shall I not be as real as the things I see? If I am, I shall not fear to know them for what they are.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)