A series of experiments were performed to determine rock mechanical parameters related to hydraulic fracturing of coal. The effect of confining pressure and pore pressure on the strength of coal was studied. Experimental results show that the coal seam in the study areas has a relatively low elastic modulus, high Poisson’s ratio, high fragility and is easily broken and compressed. The coal seam is
considered as a transversely isotropic medium, since the physical properties in the direction of bedding plane and orthogonal to the bedding plane vary markedly. Based on the generalized plane strain model, stress distribution for an arbitrarily orientated wellbore in the coal seam was determined. In a horizontal well, hydraulic fracturing was found to initiate in the coal seam mass due to tensile failure, or from cleats due to shear or tensile failure. For those coal seams with abundant natural cleats, hydraulic fracture initiation can be induced by any of these mechanisms. In this study, hydraulic fracture initiation criteria for a horizontal well in a coal seam were established.