Dex,
Yes you are correct, oil is generally considered of marine origin, though strangely enough the actual method of how oil was formed has only relatively recently been agreed upon. Coal as we all know comes from Fern forests. Coal & oil both only exist in sedimentary basins. Where coal being a solid and can only move with the surrounding rock, oil gas are both mobile and move through formations both upward and side ways, until they are caught in a geological trap or released to the atmosphere.
Many of these traps are sand stone deposits in old river deltas, that is why so many oilfields are found off the coast near the mouthes of our current major rivers, eg Gulf of Mexico, North Sea, West coast of Africa, offshore Brasil, Bass Strait to name a few. These coastal areas over geological time move between shallow seas to land mass and therefore forests.
You may ask about the Middle East. These are mainly carbonate or limestone reserve rocks and may have only been exposed to a marine environment and therefore no coal, but there are many, more than what Linc could ever use, oil fields over laid by coal seams, to the point that coal is a problem formation laid out in all the drilling books due to its instability.
To sum up Coal and oil are formed by different methods and different environments, but it is very common to find coal and oil overlying each other, and common enough that I believe Linc will be able to carry out their business plan without having a problem locating Coal and oil resources adjacent to each other.
Please note the new Texas & La fields are over laid by significant lignite fields, as I has referenced on some of my earlier posts today.
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