agm update, page-10

in relation to the political issue in queensland, I have been doing a little digging in this area too.

Not sure if it has already been covered here in the past, but there are effectively 2 tenement classifications, minerals and energy. The way I see it is that mineral permits have priority and then energy.

Thus the issue that is in place at the moment in qld (courtesy of QGC and BG) is that in the past, CSM and mining entities could readily co-exist as one wanted "gas" and the other "coal". Whilst in most cases the gas would probably need to come out first before the mining of the coal, it was more an issue of timing.

For example, if a mining company had the predominate permit and a CSM co have a secondary permit then providing the timing of the need for the mining area could be sufficiently determined, the CSM company could theoretical step in and utilise the gas, (a) allowing them to utilise the resource while (b) removing the need for the mining company to release the gas.

The issue is more of timing.

Now with CSM and UCG, my understanding is that the UCG leases are effectively a mining lease as the UCG process will "utilise" the coal not via extraction but by underground burning. This would there make the UCG permits rank as "mining permits" under the current arrangements. However, the downside for CSM players is that the gas is all used in this process as well. Thus nothing is left for the CSM players.

Now this should not affect any tenements where overlapping permits do not exist. This is the beauty of CXY. However, the only issue may be if the govt introduces a 3rd classification of permit or bans UCG outright. The banning of UCG would be very short sighted to say the least given the benefits that we all know.

Does anyone know what percentage of UCG tenements are overlapping? Surely this has got to be a fairly small percentage and therefore more a game of bluff than a real issue per se?


It will be interesting to see if the qld govt is up to the task or whether they will simply fold to the might of BG? Surely they will see the benefits to the state of having both technologies??

The qld govt is being pressured by industry players to sort this out expeditely and Anna Bligh at a Qld REsources Council lunch yesterday made no bones about doing what is right for queensland. It will be interesting to see if that is what is right now (with the gun pointed to the head by BG) or what will be right in the long term - imo BG will not pull the pin on QGC and packup and leave. Both CSM and UCG can operate in Qld imo, with only those companies with overlapping tenements at risk.