June 22, 2007

Second International Underground Coal Gasification Workshop  held in Houston, TX, USA

The second Workshop on  the global commercial applications of UCG  hosted by Zeus Development Corporation of Texas, USA  brought together participants from 12 countries representing 42 companies including the largest international corporations from oil and gas, coal, chemical and power industries as well as environmental, government, financial, academic and research organizations.

There were  reports with updates on the commercial projects based on the εUCG™ technology - from Canada, US, South Africa, India, Australia and New Zealand, presented by Laurus Energy (Canada), GasTech (USA), Eskom (South Africa), Cougar Energy (Australia), and AE Coal Technologies (India) and Ergo Exergy.  Two papers from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (USA) reported on the document "The best practices of Underground Coal Gasification" prepared for the US Department of Energy, discussed the LLNL program of research in UCG and focused on the issues of CO₂ capture and sequestration in UCG operations. Papers from UCG group in University of Queensland (Australia) concerned UCG research conducted in the university targeting modeling of UCG unit operations and experimental studies of coal properties that are relevant to UCG.

A technical panel discussions of various technical and environmental aspects of UCG gave the audience an opportunity to get answers to their specific UCG questions and concerns. The Workshop was concluded by an inaugurational meeting of the International UCG Association.

Following the Workshop, the licensees and clients of Ergo Exergy held the meeting of "The εUCG™ technology Users' Group". The Users' Group assists its members in sharing  experiences and practices of implementing the εUCG™ technology in various geological and market situations around the globe.