Just a bit of reading for you .From Petroleum News.........East...

Just a bit of reading for you .From Petroleum News.........
East Coast eyes US UCG project

Tuesday, 1 September 2009

EAST Coast Minerals has acquired an option over an underground coal gasification project in Rawlins, Wyoming, the site of three successful UCG trials.



Under the option, East Coast subsidiary Energie Future can acquire Carbon County UCG from Williams by paying $US2 million ($A2.37 million) in the first two years of the three-year option.

A decision to acquire CCUCG in the third year will incur an additional payment equal to the cost of any work carried out by Williams on the site in that year.

Energie Future will also have to pay option fees of $US50,000 for the first year, $US100,000 for the second year and $US200,000 for the third year.

Once the acquisition goes ahead, a bond of $US6 million will have to be placed with the Wyoming Department of Energy.

Three successful UCG trials have been carried out at the Rawlins site between 1979 and 1995, one of which was a commercial trial which ran for three months with coal consumption of 200 tonnes per day.

Energie Future is planning to have a full feasibility study completed and approvals in place within 24 months, and will start commercial production of the gas-to-liquids plant within 42 months, though UCG trials are expected to start earlier than this.

Work will start immediately on the study and the detailed design of a 2700 barrel per day GTL project, with the first stage of the project aimed at having a capacity of up to 50,000bpd.

The plant will use Small Fixed Bed Fischer Tropsch Process and proprietary catalysts developed by Energie Future’s Pittsburgh-based partner, Energy Technology Partners.