west australian article

thanks CC1 and dacata.
from the West Australian:

CARBON IN LINE FOR METHANOL POWER DEAL
The stakes for Carbon energy's looming $20million trial of ucg technology has been raised after the group yesterday signed a landmark deal to power what could be one of the world's biggest methanol plants.

The company, headed by WA mining veteran Ian Walker, as teamed up wit Dutch plastics and fuel group LyondellBasell for a joint pre-feasibility study to look at building a methanol plant in Queensland.

The plant would be powered by Carbon's queensland coal tenemnets in the Surat Basin, using its underground coal gasification technology (UCG).

News of the deal sent shares in Carbon, formerly Metex Resources, up 18%, or 11/5cents to 73cents.

The scope of the dealechoes a May agreement with Incitec Pivot which gave the fertiliser giant both a 10.5% stake in the compnay and exclusive rights to the group's UCG technology relating to ammonia and ammonia-derived products.

But while the lucrative deals are potentially company making, the fate of Carbon's ambitious plans would appear to rest on 100 day UCG demo trial to start on October 1.

A further potential JV with Incitec to build an ammonia plant is linked to the outcome of the trial and, while work on the feasibility study with LyondellBasell will begin imminently, the trial results will be crucial to any final decision.

Although its proponents argue UCG, which uses oxygen at high pressure to break coal into its components, provides a lower cost source of energy, analysts still say it carries significant risk.

Carbon Chief Operating Officer Andrew Dash said the partnership with LyondellBasell reflected global acknowledgement of the potential of Carbon's UCG tecnology, which it considered to be world class.

"While we've been doing our technical trial we've been working on (establishing) these strategic partnerships." he said.

With annual revenues of close to $45billion, LyondellBasell is one of the world's biggest polymer, petrochemical and fuel companies.

Mr Dash said the company hoped to create a hub in regional Queensland to include a methanol plant and the ammonia plant it may build.

He said, while the cost and scale of the methanol plant would be considered under the feasibilty study, it was intended to be among the world's biggest.