re: Ann: CNX Receives Trigger Payment for Inn... CNX gets a...

re: Ann: CNX Receives Trigger Payment for Inn... CNX gets a mention in todays Auystralian:

BRISBANE-BASED Carbon Energy has received its first revenue from the commercial deployment of its underground coal gasification technology.

But it is coming all the way from China, not from its Bloodwood Creek project in Queensland, where the need to clear regulatory hurdles for the development of a UCG industry is still being worked on.

The company said yesterday that it had collected an initial $750,000 from the owners of a state and privately owned coalfield in Inner Mongolia, with the payment representing the first instalment in a series that could total $8.25 million for service and technology fees.

In addition, the successful development of a UCG project producing 30 petajoules of gas annually will trigger royalty payments from the Chinese coal owners and $10m in technology licence fees.

Carbon Energy chief executive Morne Engelbrecht said the initial payment represented the start of the "first steady income stream for the company and the first ever commercialisation of our 'keystream' UCG technology."

The company has spent $100m on developing its UCG technology, originally the product of coal-to-energy research by the CSIRO, a continuing shareholder in the company.

The company says the technology can deliver 20 times more energy from the same coal resource than is possible with coal-seam gas extraction. Unlike CSG extraction, the controversial hydraulic fracturing or "fracking" of coal seams is not required in the UCG process. But it does involve the in-situ ignition of the coal to produce gas.

An independent scientific panel in Queensland recommended that any approvals of UCG developments in the state should be tied to a requirement to demonstrate that the site -- mainly the leftover underground crypt -- can be rehabilitated. Carbon Energy has said previously it is confident that remediation can be achieved at its test site at Bloodwood Creek.

Another UCG proponent, Peter Bond's Linc Energy, said last week it would decommission its Chinchilla project because the Queensland government had "not provided the UCG industry with any material certainty or confidence capable of supporting commercial investment in UCG in Queensland". It is looking to deploy its version of the technology in overseas locations.

- See more at: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/mining-energy/china-source-of-firms-first-ucg-revenue/story-e6frg9df-1226757679256#sthash.gvRu2NyC.dpuf