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The Australian is the first cab off the rank as far as I can see.

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EASTERN Star Gas is pressing on with its ambition to be one of the first Australian companies to turn coal seam gas into LNG for export.
The company has launched a $100 million share placement and announced it has bought some land to accommodate a small-scale LNG processing plant in New South Wales.

Far larger players, including BG Group and Royal Dutch Shell, are vying to be the first in the world to super cool coal seam gas for export from massive projects in Queensland, slated to go live from 2014.

Eastern Star and its Japanese partners Hitachi and Toyo Engineering, which will provide the technology, are betting regional energy demand will grow so quickly that there will be a need to focus on small-scale natural gas reserves too, especially in South-east Asia.

New shares in Eastern Star are being issued with an underwritten floor price of 82 cents each, with the final issue price to be determined by a bookbuild.

The company's existing shares, which last traded 10.4 per cent above the floor price at 91.5c, have been placed in a trading halt until no later than tomorrow morning.

Sydney-based Eastern Star, 20 per cent owned by Santos, wants to start exporting 1 million tonnes of LNG a year from a $1 billion processing plant at the port of Newcastle by 2014. It declined to comment Monday on whether Santos intends to participate in the placement.

The company also said today that it has agreed to acquire a 24 hectare parcel of land on Kooragang Island, Newcastle for $25m plus "pre-transaction costs" and taxes.

Proceeds from the raising will also be used for ongoing exploration costs of about $48m and front-end engineering and design costs of about $34m for the proposed LNG plant.

Credit Suisse and RBS are the joint lead managers of the placement.