Linc Energy

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It’s been hotly-tipped as the next big thing in energy in Australia; taking underground coal gasification (UGC), a method of coal mining initially coined in the USSR, and potentially changing the face of coal mining. To list but a few of its plus points, it requires little or no underground work by mining staff—a beneficial health and safety attribute. It provides far less of an eyesore on surface, the chemical extraction methods used to mine the coal do not need large-scale open pit operations to be created. It allows us to economically consider the extraction of coal at new depths previously considered too costly. The process of actually creating gas underground allows UCG to create up to 20 times the energy capable through CSG.

In proving that UCG is as exciting as it sounds, Queensland­—the current hottest area of development for UCG in Australia, is playing host to three pilot projects which the state government is monitoring. One of these belongs to Linc Energy; the longest-running UCG focused company of the three, which was originally founded in 1998. The company’s Chinchilla demonstration facility operated under the Queensland Government Mineral Development Licence (MDL) is the pilot project in question. However, we’re not just talking UCG, because since 2008 Linc has introduced another energy medium to the project; Gas to Liquids (GTL). In amalgamating UCG and GTL, Linc is combining the technologies to produce cleaner power and fuels in a new and exciting way.

To Chinchilla

Active with UCG technology in and around the Surat Basin, which neighbours Chinchilla, for over 10 years now, Linc knows its way around the area. The facility boasts four UCG generators and GTL production runs of up to 150 consecutive hours, an onsite laboratory for immediate gas and product analysis, and acts as an important research and development centre as the company intends on building its first commercial plant in South Australia, where Linc has a project underway in the Walloway Basin.

As the world’s first ever gas-to-liquids plant operating on UCG-produced gas, Chinchilla has a lot to accomplish. However Linc, as a long-standing company involved in UCG, has gotten off to a flying start. Development at Chinchilla began back in July 1999 and the plant’s first gas was produced that same year. Within two years of inception, Linc managed to master the process, which demonstrates the rapid rate at which the company was able to prove up the potential of this relatively under-explored technology. Three gas generators have been developed since this first gas was produced, and a coup for the company occurred when Generator Four was established in order to supply syngas for Linc Energy’s GTL demonstration plant; another world-first for Linc.

In October 2007, GTL edged in towards Chinchilla when the company began construction of the GTL demonstration plant. It was at this time that the laboratory was built, and both were completed by August 2008 cementing the arrival of GTL at Chinchilla. In October that same year the first liquid hydrocarbons were produced at the plant.

Chinchilla was officially declared open by The Honourable Martin Ferguson AM MP, the Federal Minister for Resources and Energy, which again demonstrates the governments interest and support in Linc’s work at the project.

“Australia is coal and gas rich, with hundreds of years of reserves. Technologies that convert coal and gas to ultra-clean diesel and jet fuel have the potential to replace Australia’s declining oil reserves and make us self-sufficient in liquid transport fuels once again,” Ferguson told attendees on April 22, 2009.

“This technology [UCG] unlocks energy from Australia’s significant stranded and uneconomic coal reserves and has the potential to dramatically reduce Australia’s dependence upon imported oil and refined products.” Chinchilla has continued its work as a vital development project in Australia’s quest for cleaner coal ever since.

However, Chinchilla is not Linc’s only project. The company plans to develop a coal gasification project in cooperation with Xinwen Mining Group in the mining-rich Yining area of China, to build a to build a 20,000 barrels per day gas-to-liquid plant in the Arckaringa basin in South Australia, and owns a number of tenements in Queensland Australia.

Linc today

Linc aims to produce 20,000 barrels a day, which equates to 10 per cent of Australia’s fuel consumption. Government support and market interest is on the rise, and the task of taking a very old, previously overlooked technology and bringing it to the forefront of today’s energy solutions now looks achievable.

Linc is working towards building its power plant in South Australia, where energy is in drastically short supply, aiming for this to total 200 to 400 megawatts with construction planned to kick off by the end of 2011. Chinchilla provides an example of the UCG and GTL production process in motion, and showcases Linc’s ability to commercially realise such new use of old technology to harness today’s energy needs. While using UCG to its full potential may seem to have been a long time coming, Linc energy stands out as one of the companies ready and willing to make it a reality.