Abstract: In order to extract gas from lower coal seam, in-seam boreholes in bottom roadway are commonly constructed in Malan Mine. However, this method has several problems such as high cost of gas governance, mine production procedure is delayed. To solve these problems, Malan Mine propose a technology called “borehole instead of roadway”, which replaces roadway with directional long borehole to extract gas from lower coal seam. Industrial test has been carried out in 18506 working face to analyze conditions of replacing. The results show that the extraction flow of directional long borehole increased significantly, and the average flow rate of each main hole or branch is 0.40 m³/min. In addition, if the directional long borehole is arranged at a distance of 30 m to fully cover the seam below the 18506 working face, it can replace the roadway to extract the pressure relief gas in the 9^# coal seam. Further, under the condition of 0.8% gas concentration in the return air flow of 18506 working face, the feasible conditions for directional long boreholes to replace the in-seam boreholes in the bottom roadway and to pre-extract the gas in the adjacent layer are that the gas content of 9^# coal seam should not exceed 6.41 m³/t and 7.88 m³/t separately. This research provide a reference for the work of “borehole instead of roadway” in high gas outburst mining area in China.