Coal in the Philippines was discovered in 1827 on Cebu

GEOLOGY AND MINERAL RESOURCES OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS
BY WARREN D. SMITH
MANILA BUREAU OF PRINTING 1924
pp 367-369

CEBU (11, 561)
Coal in the Philippines was discovered in 1827 on Cebu.(1l3) Cebu is the second district in importance in the coal industry; although the mines located on this island are not the largest, there are more of them and the coal reserve there is greater than on Batan. Cebu is a long, narrow, mountainous island, with no navigable rivers, few bays, and but little wide coastal plain. Geologically, many of the formations on Cebu are similar to those on Batan; there are also crystalline schists, volcanic flows, and old slates, all of which may yet be found on Batan, however. In two respects Cebu differs greatly from Batan. It is badly deforested, as compared with Batan, and there is over the greater portion of Cebu a thick mantle of coral limestone, which has been cut through here and there by erosion, revealing the coal measures below. The coal measures are of the same age as those of Batan. Structurally, the island is badly faulted and there is more or less intense folding of the rocks, which makes coal mining difficult. Scores of outcrops are known in at least fifteen localities, which are distributed from one end of the island to the other. The chief localities to which attention was paid by the Spaniards are to-day receiving the attention of Americans. All but one of these localities are on the eastern side of the central cordillera. In the early days a great many claims were staked out in this field, but only a few were ever patented. 'At the present time, it is necessary to secure leases from the Government, as patents on freeholds are no longer issued. Cebu is the headquarters of the National Coal Company, which has workings in the vicinity of Mount Licos, 15 kilometers west of Compostela, the site of rather extensive workings in Spanish times. To date this mine has not been particularly successful. In reality, the only property which approaches a real mine is that of the Mount Uling Coal Mining Company, situated about 12 kilometers west of Naga. Cebu has the distinction of being the one island, in addition to Mindanao, where coking coal is known to exist. A seam about half a meter in thickness occurs at Guila-Guila, on Mananga River, about 5 kilometers west of the city of Cebu, on the property of Mr. Eugene Mitkievicz. There is also some coking coal at Mount Uling and on Toledo River. Four principal coal seams which, more or less modified, can be identified in several localities, are known on this island and at Mount Licos; they were given in Spanish times the following names: 4. Pilarica.-1.4 meters; strike north 23~ east, dip 30~ southeast; 40-meter interval. 3. Enrique Abella.-1.2 to 1.5 meters; strike north 23~ east, dip 40~ southeast; 9-meter interval. 2. Esperanza.-50 centimeters; strike and dip same as No. 1; 40-meter interval. 1. Carmen.-1.6 meters thick; strike northeast and southwest, dip 30~ southeast. This is the lowest. Some small undertakings for the exploitation of coal at Mount Uling, Mount Licos, and Camansi were in progress prior to 1898, and a large project with Government backing was in process of formation just at the outbreak of the insurrection in 1896. This project was to have been under the supervision of Abella, the then Inspector de Minas of the Spanish Government, one of the ablest of the Spanish engineers in the Philippines and certainly the most competent geologist. The property of the Danao Coal Mines, Limited, located at Camansi, Cebu, which mined several thousand tons in 1920, has recently been taken over by a large syndicate of foreigners in China, and it is expected that they will carry forward the work on a large scale. The seams in this field are continuations in part of those at Licos and of the field to the north. In the field adjoining on the north known as Cajumay-jumayan, careful estimates by the late Benjamin Smith Lyman, a famous American coal engineer, who examined it in 1907, gave the workable coal reserve as at least 7,000,000 tons. In this field the coal seams lie in a syncline; elsewhere in Cebu they are generally in a monoclinal attitude.