Stumbled across this, maybe old news ... does any one have more information?
From Wikipedia
A new technology has been announced in May 2012 by developer Portman Energy wherein a method called SWIFT (Single Well Integrated Flow Tubing) uses a single vertical well for both Syngas recovery and oxidant delivery. The design has a single casing of tubing strings enclosed and filled with an inert gas to allow for leak monitoring, corrosion prevention and heat transfer. A series of horizontally drilled lateral oxidant delivery lines into the coal and a single or multiple syngas recovery pipeline(s) allow for a larger area of coal to be combusted at one time. The developers claim this method will increase the syngas production by up to ten (10) times prior design approaches and the single well design mean development costs are significantly lower and the facilities and wellheads are concentrated at a single point reducing surface access roads, pipelines and facilities footprint