SIMTARS sells high-speed gas chromatographs along with proprietary analysis software (Safegas and Segas) that is widely used in the Australian coal mining sector and throughout the world.

The organisation’s primary mandate is to service the Queensland coal mining industry with a range of technologies and training, but over time SIMTARS has become a leader in its monitoring business.

SIMTARS director Stewart Bell said, while not core business, selling gas chromatographs into China brought down the unit cost for local mines and helped fund ongoing research and development.

Feedback from Chinese users has also been fed into ongoing software development to the benefit of the end-user.

In recent months the China Coal Research Institute (CCRI), China’s peak safety body, has ordered 16 high-speed gas analysers, six of which have been delivered and their operators trained.

Bell said the Chinese Government had decided to put on the road 100 mobile laboratories.

Bell sees no reason there can’t be 500 or more chromatograph units there in the next five to ten years.

Though, if demand escalated to those levels, SIMTARS would seek a partner such as CCRI to manufacture in China under licence.

A detailed report of SIMTARS’ activity in China and India will be featured in the September edition of Australian Longwall Magazine, due out the end of this month.