Today’s circumstances’ have turned all the old arguments...

Today’s circumstances’ have turned all the old arguments completely on their heads. Three years ago the opec countries along with the oil companies were 100% against UCG/GTL merely because of the price that UCG/GTL could be produced for $30 P.B. against what they were getting at the time $120.00 plus. P.B.
It would cause the opec countries/oil companies to go broke. This didn’t happen and they are getting even less now what GTL can be produced for.

Of course this situation cannot go on indefinitely, they will either, run out of cash, or oil; and have to look elsewhere, this will be the right time for UCG/GTL. Which maybe much closer than many can imagine.

What is often overlooked, is the enormous cost involved in duplicating the Uzbekistan Power plant, 10 Billion at today’s cost,( see extract below from a 1999 article by Dr. Len Walker, The founder of Linc Energy) of course our current plants can be converted to use Singas, but in many other places where UCG will be needed there are no power plants.

“Why reinvent the wheel?”
When you consider the monumental sum of $10 billion 1976 dollars invested in UCG in the Former Soviet Union, and the years of successful testing and usage of UCG associated with these funds, plus additional testing in the USA, it seems backtracking and retesting this well-examined technology is futile.
Walker says that much of the worldwide interest in UCG today stems from the Chinchilla project, despite the years of successful testing and documented findings presented by the work which took place within the FSU. And this is for a very good reason. Despite unprecedented scale and wealth of experience gained in the FSU operations, Chinchilla project has demonstrated that Ergo Exergy technology provides for a much more consistent production of gas of a better quality, at a very low cost and without negative impact on the environment.
“In the U.K., a group called the UCG Partnership strongly promotes Underground Coal Gasification there. It’s on the government’s horizon and there are one or two projects being discussed using coal that is very deep, which will be very difficult to commercialise. Our interest is in coal generally shallower than 400 metres, but the general discussion in the U.K. is focussed on coal at 600 or 700 metres which is extremely deep, and is unlikely to be economical for a considerable period of time. We’re looking at possible projects where the coal is considerably shallower,” Walker says.