Read more about LINC Energy Australia's UCG-GTL company

Visit www.UCG-GTL.com to get up to date on Australia's pathway to oil independence.

Linc Energy has been advised by the Director of the Trust Land Office (on behalf of the Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority) that, following a competitive bidding process, Linc Energy has been awarded 100% of the UCG exploration program licence area for which it tendered.

The decision follows more than six months' work in UCG geological assessment and competitive tender submissions from a dedicated unit spanning the Linc Energy Australian and United States offices.

"This is an excellent outcome for Linc Energy which greatly advances our strategic goal to bring commercial UCG development to Alaska and become a significant part of the USA domestic energy market. We have known for a long time that Alaska, and the Cook Inlet Basin in particular, holds significant coal deposits. Importantly, the decision confirms that we were successful in obtaining 100 per cent of the exploration areas we applied for in the competitive tender process. This is an outstanding result and is yet another example of the dedication and professionalism of our Linc Energy team," said Chief Executive Officer Peter Bond.

"Linc Energy is a unique company. Compared with our UCG competitors, we adopt an aggressive resources ownership and exploration program. We also own and continue to research and develop Linc Energy's proprietary UCG technology. We have a large expert technical team across a number of disciplines and countries, with significant operational experience via our many years of hands-on operations success at Chinchilla and Uzbekistan. We also have the unique ability to work concurrently on multiple projects globally," said Bond.

"The gaining of this acreage marks Linc Energy's entry into stage two of its Alaska plan. In conjunction with our continuing oil and gas program, coal exploration for UCG will be conducted aggressively over the next 24 months," said Bond.

The coal potential of this acreage is shown to be extraordinary, with huge upside for Linc Energy.

"Alaska is shaping up to be one of the key territories for Linc Energy to launch its global energy operations. It is a progressive jurisdiction and has significant infrastructure as an important energy hub. We also have an excellent Alaskan Linc Energy team and we look forward to continuing to work with the Alaska Mental Health Authority and the Trust Land Office as we proceed to progressively develop this opportunity to a commercial stage," he said.

Linc Energy looks forward to updating the market on its exploration program for this area over the coming weeks.

LNC has the following:

• Under ground coal gasification producing syngas to power electricity generation
• Underground coal gasification and the conversion of the resultant gas to liquids (UCG-GTL)
• At least a billion dollars worth of coking coal... that could easily be used for three stand alone coal export projects
• A new process where fuel cells are combined with Hydrogen derived from UCG to produce electricity.

The first two have been covered in depth and information can be readily found at www.ucg-gtl.com. The third can be found here at LNC's quarterly report

And the fourth is why I have put up this post... The concept is exciting and oh so green....

Using fuel cells with underground coal gasification Fuel Cells, Apr 23 2010 (The Hydrogen Journal) Article

- Sir David King, a former chief scientific advisor to the British government and now director of the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at the University of Oxford, says he sees an important application for alkaline fuel cells with underground coal gasification, making previously uneconomic coal mines economic, and keeping the carbon dioxide underground.

The idea is that coal is gasified underground to form hydrogen and carbon monoxide, by blowing oxygen and hot steam through it. The hydrogen can be directly used to make electricity in a fuel cell, and the carbon monoxide reacted again with water to form carbon dioxide, and put back underground.

“I think the alkaline fuel cell is virtually there and there’s an immediate niche which is coal gasification," Sir David said during a recent visit to AFC Energy, a UK manufacturer of alkaline fuel cells.

"In North Wales and Leicestershire there are coal mines that are have been closed down that are inefficient for coal mining but all that coal is still there to be gasified."

“The biggest single challenge we’re faced with globally is to move from a fossil fuel-based economy to fossil fuel less-society," Sir David said during his visit. "To me, this challenge is the most wonderful technology, innovation, wealth creation possibility. What I’ve just seen at AFC is an exciting example of this. The alkaline fuel cell has the possibility to create power stations with megawatts of electricity.”

The UK could access an estimated 17 billion additional tons of coal using this process.

AFC Energy has an agreement with Linc Energy of Australia, to use the technology in Linc's global UCG projects.

Following the visit, Sir David invited AFC Energy to join leading global figures from the policy, business and academic communities at the 2010 World Forum on Enterprise and the Environment, run jointly with The Times newspaper.

AFC Energy

LINC's high grade coal tenement's for sale include:

• Emerald: The Emerald (Teresa) tenement - inferred 852 million tonnes ("mt") resource in accordance with the JORC code* contains coal of coking and thermal grade.

• Galilee: Coal mineralisation exploration target(1) of 3.0 - 3.4 billion tonnes**, including 1.6 - 1.9 billion tonnes identified for potential extraction via open cut mining methods within a depth of 120 metres.

• Pentland: The Pentland tenement containing a total thermal coal resource of 266mt in accordance with the JORC code**

Recent Developements USA "Linc Energy now holds more Wyoming State coal leases than any other company, with a coal acreage footprint of 173,327 acres. This puts Linc Energy into a very strong position to undertake commercial UCG operations in Wyoming and move quickly to the construction of a commercial Gas to Liquids facility in the USA."

South Australia SAPEX's Ground... Several billion tons of coal that can be converted to oil for around $30 per barrel with 1 ton of coal giving ~1.5 BOE...

"Five exploration wells intersected coal at depths of between 200 and 293 metres with coal seam thickness of up to 23 metres. JORC Code of 1.0 to 1.3 billion metric tonnes. The coal deposit is at an ideal depth for Underground Coal Gasification (UCG) "

Vietnam: Linc Energy entered into a business cooperation contract with Vietnam National Coal and Mineral Industries Group (VINACOMIN) and Japan’s Marubeni Corporation to undertake a trial UCG project in the Red River Delta region in Vietnam.