qld govt

There is chatter these days as to whether the Qld Govt will approve UCG projects around mid 2011.

As far as I am aware the current moritorium on UCG was introduced at the behest of big players in the CSG industry either worried about the issue of overlapping UCG/CSG tenaments or the threat of UCG eventually taking domestic capacity from them.

The issue of overlapping tenaments is a furphy imo because an equivalent UCG operation requires a 1/16th portion of any CSG tenament if the coal and site conditions are suited.

The issue of domestic competition is also a furphy imo as the CSG industry is a london mile from meeting just announced LNG export requirements out of Gladstone.

UCG press releases in America, India, China, Pakistan and Australia have been steadily growing for at least three years now (based on anecdotal evidence of the freqency my Google Alerts get hit).

Groundwater contamination was shown to be a non issue during/following the Chinchilla trial of 99/02 and has not been announced to have been an issue in recent trial burns of LNC and CNX in Qld ... so for well run UCG operations contamination appears to be a bit of a furphy as well.

Assume CXY, CNX and LNC go on to demonstrate their UCG projects in Qld do not pose a contamination threat and can produce cost effective greener electricity, methane essentially identical to CSG, diesel, fertilisers and other products. Why wouldn't the Qld Govt go for two income/royalty streams (UCG and CSG) and the cudos of being globally the earliest adoptor of commercial UCG?

CXY and CNX are going hard to demostrate their wares in Qld.

I am increasingly confident that UCG will be approved in Qld. It would not make sense otherwise imo.

Cheers
Dex