Was on the bus as well... just haven't been on HC yet and you have already posted a nice summary. Which bus were you on... the first or second?
Was very good to see the site in person, even from the bus!
As you said, main sticking point will be the CSG vs UCG on conflicting tenements and the water levels as well.
From friday... CSG environmental issues was definately under attack from Wayne Newton from agforce and a local farmer affected by Arrow. Good bloke in my opinion. Issues of salinity in the so called waste water of CSG is massive. Can't believe that they have been allowed to actually carry on with the industry as it is. Worst part in my opinion is that the CSG companies will only do something about the water if they can make a quid out of treating the water. I think they should have to do it anyway as part of being able to access the gas.
I hold a lot of CSG shares but also am a landholder of prime agricultural land in the area between Dalby and Chinchilla so can see the argument from both sides. Thankfully our land is on the eastern side of the condamine river where there is no activity at all for coal mines or CSG.
LNC... was suitably impressed to become a holder on friday morning. By the sounds of it they are looking at taking their technology as far and wide as possible. In fact Justyn Peters was flying out to China again today. Also he said they were no longer just looking at 20,000 barrels of diesel plant but 40,000 barrel now. My suspicion will be that if it is major success in trial they will go for the larger option.
Lastly was impressed during the day in the way Justyn, Rusty (Carbon Energy), and Len all presented at the end of the day. Wasn't really anything new... but they completely dismantled and tore apart the arguments against UCG.
Justyn Peters in particular was good on this front... he showed the potential of UCG in meeting future energy needs. Much the same information as before but showed how much more can be recovered from UCG vs CSG. Rusty from Carbon talked about how they got started through the CSIRO. He also talked about how the environmental concerns were tackled. The contamination of water tables happen when the pressure in the reactor from air pumped in is greater than the water pressure of the above water table. The increased pressure forces the hydrocarbons out into the water and contamionation occurs. This happened in the two out of 62 trials / fields that have occured. All 3 UCG players in australia are very much aware of this, and know that the key is to keep the pressure in the reactor below that of the water table. Its also in their best interest as they want to recover all those hydro carbons!!! Len Walker was last up, and as the godfather of UCG provided a good overview of UCG process, that vs surface gasification etc. I think slides were similar to those in Houston conference recently.
The very good thing imho was the UCG guys all worked together in their presentations and comprehensively debunked all the rumours circling UCG and its environmental merits. I would say at the end of the day UCG came out looking pretty good, and at the same time CSG came out with a lot of question marks about their environmental impact.
LNC Price at posting:
0.0¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
