Piceance Basin, Colorado American Shale Oil Corporation (AMSO) holds one of three preference right leases granted in 2007 by the U. S. Bureau of Land Management for the research, design, and development of the Piceance Basin oil shale resource in Colorado. AMSO with 50%-partner energy-major Total are invested in the development of an innovative and [...]
Geologic Studies
Engineering Support for Start-up of Large Underground Coal Operation—Trinidad, Colorado Starting in 2009 and continuing into 2011, Agapito Associates, Inc. has provided most of the mining engineering services required to bring this large underground, multi-seam coal mining operation into production. At full production, the New Elk Coal Company mining complex is scheduled to produce over [...]
ExxonMobil—Upstream Research Company Since 2007, AAI has mobilized drilling equipment to the Upstream Research Company’s (URC) Colony Mine ten times for a variety of tasks. Core drilling underground has been done with AW, BW44, BQ, HQ3, and 6-inch-thin kerf coring tools. Core drilling from the surface has been done with HQ3 and HX coring tools. [...]
West Elk Mine—Somerset, CO AAI has provided underground geotechnical engineering services to Mountain Coal Company’s West Elk Mine since the 1980s. Services include installation of geotechnical instrumentation, in-situ stress measurements, laboratory rock properties testing, periodic ground control reviews, pillar and barrier sizing analysis, shield size specification, geotechnical characterization for shaft design, subsidence evaluation, and geological [...]
Longwall Optimization In 1997, AAI conducted three studies for West Ridge prior to mine development. The first study addressed longwall panel orientation based on local fracture mapping, conducted by AAI, and a review of local and regional geologic data. The second report dealt with preliminary gateroad design and pillar sizing. The third report described mine [...]
Order of Magnitude Studies and Geotechnical Characterization Order of Magnitude studies for conventional room-and-pillar mining, longwall mining, and solution mining of a potential soda ash mine at Kazan, Turkey, were completed by AAI. The solution mining option was aggressively pursued by Rio Tinto and AAI was responsible for design of deep horizontal caverns, resource definition, [...]
