Australian Rare Earths

Australian Alternative Energy Forum


Not Really a Forum, more of my memory aid.


Comments on this forum should never be taken as investment advice.


Go Back   Alternative Energy Forums > Alternative Energy Discussion > Coal to Gas (Syngas)

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1  
Old 04-04-2011, 02:15 AM
Sparty Sparty is offline
Administrator
 
Join Date: Mar 2009
Posts: 1,765
Default Regal Resources could unlock billions of tons of Coal Seam Gas

The announcement by Regal Resources (31 March 2011) Commencement of Biogenic Methane Enhancement Pilot could be of great significance if the trial gives a positive result.... I have been following the idea of biogenically stimulated methane production since 1986 following a chance encounter with a couple of Russian scientists while I attended a conference in Beijing.

Much more recently I have been following Regal Resources ASX: RER.....

ASX Announcement
Commencement of Biogenic Methane Enhancement Pilot
The Directors of Regal Resources Limited ("Regal") are pleased to announce the commencement of the pilot project for its prospective biogenic methane enhancement (BME) technology.

The project is being conducted by Enhanced Biogenic Methane Limited ("EBM"), a wholly owned subsidiary of Regal. EBM has secured an exclusive Australian and Northern Ireland license to the BME technology from the Western Research Institute of Wyoming, who are at the forefront of this field globally.

The pilot project
Regal will focus on applying the BME technology at its Oak Park site, located within EL 4507 and covering 762km2 to the west of Melbourne, where there is evidence of substantial quantities of brown coal to which the BME technology may have a commercial application.

Regulatory approvals have been secured from the Department of Primary Industries, the Environment Protection Authority and Southern Rural Water. The pilot has commenced with the first phase of 50 days being the pre-treatment phase, which prepares the coal for the two subsequent 50 day phases, being the addition of nutrients in phase two and inoculants in phase three.

The pilot project is utilising an existing well which was previously a coal seam gas pilot well. At the pilot site there is an approximately 20 metre thick coal seam present at a depth of approximately 90 metres. An eighteen metre long 100mm diameter slotted stainless steel sleeve has been installed vertically within the seam to keep the hole open, while allowing the reactions to occur and methane to rise to surface. Surface equipment has been installed which will deliver the non-organic nutrients and monitor gas and water samples. It is expected the pilot will be completed in August and analysis of results to occur
thereafter.

The technology
BME technology involves speeding up the natural biogenic process that produces methane known as coal seam gas. Biogenic methane accounts for more than 30% of the total methane reserves on earth. Major sources include coal seam gas in the Surat Basin in Queensland Australia and Powder River Basin in Wyoming, United States of America.

BME works by artificially stimulating the micro-organisms called methanogens that break down the coal structure in real time causing the production of biogenic methane. BME technology works best on lignite (brown coal), low rank black coals and oil shale. This is because of their high volatiles and hydrogen content, which if all converted to methane would yield gas quantities several times that of traditional coal seam gas.

There are two major applications for BME technology that represent very large target markets. The first is ?stranded? coal that has minimal market value due to low quality ? an example is the vast lignite brown coal reserves in Victoria. The second application is the re-activation of depleted coal seam gas wells,
whereby the indigenous micro-organisms in the coal are stimulated to produce further methane.

Application of BME is expected to be via the same drilling techniques used in the coal seam gas industry. One of the advantages of BME is that only a small amount of the coal is converted to methane, hence there is no surface subsidence as can happen with underground mining or underground coal gasification.BME has been demonstrated to produce methane real time in both bench scale trials (lignite and black coal) and field tests (black coal).

Many treatments of same coal possible ?harvesting? concept. Typical hydrogen
content of low ranked coals and oil shales is 5% by weight. If all this hydrogen could be converted to methane, gas content of coal would be 10 times that of traditional coal seam gas (CSG)


For any inquiries, please contact Angus Edgar on +61 3 8610 8633.
Angus Edgar
Managing Director

RER have another very interesting technology that makes UCG-GTL a one step process

I hold RER

 

Disclaimer: The author of this post, may or may not be a shareholder of any of the companies mentioned in this column. No company mentioned has sponsored or paid for this content. Comments on this forum should never be taken as investment advice.

Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is On

Forum Jump


All times are GMT. The time now is 11:42 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.1
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.