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Linc permitting up to 5 exploration holes Company continuing work north of Tyonek to evaluate resource for underground coal gasification on Mental Health Trust license area Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
Linc Energy Operations Inc. is in the processing of permitting up to five exploration holes to evaluate coal seams on the west side of Alaska’s Cook Inlet for potential underground coal gasification development.
Just one of the holes is expected to be drilled this year.
The program Linc is permitting is on its 107,497-acre Alaska Mental Health Trust underground coal gasification license areas. Linc has two blocks on the west side of Cook Inlet, the Tyonek UGC exploration license area, some 25,375 acres, and the Kenai UCG exploration license area, some 82,123 acres.
The company is proposing to drill to an estimated maximum depth of 3,500 feet and take cores and associated samples, tests and physical information for evaluation.
One drill hole, TYEX02 in the Tyonek exploration license area, will be drilled this year.
Initial site mobilization was planned to begin in early August, with drilling estimated to begin Sept. 1.
Linc will use the LECR No. 1, a Buffalo American Recon AR-250 drill rig, which is a helicopter portable rotary rig capable of drilling to 5,000 feet; the planned depth of TYEX02 is 3,000 feet.
The Department of Natural Resources, Division of Mining, Land and Water, issued a preliminary findings of fact for the project July 23 and has it out for public review for 30 days.
Unconventional program Linc, an Australian independent, is working toward development at the Umiat field on the North Slope and has completed the first flow test in decades at that oil conventional oil field, which has been known for decades.
In Cook Inlet, however, the company is now focused on unconventional development.
Underground coal gasification, UCG, involves igniting coal underground and injecting air and water into the coal seams. The mixture of heat and oxygen produces methane.
Peter Bond, Linc’s chief executive officer, said in 2010 when the company came to Alaska that Linc had been looking at Alaska because of the state’s coal reserves.
The company drilled TYEX01 in late 2011 and the TYEX01X in early 2012 in the Tyonek area, less than three miles from Chugach Electric Association’s Beluga power plant. In 2011 and 2012, Linc acquired 2-D seismic over both its Cook Inlet properties and another Mental Health UCG license area which it holds in Interior Alaska.
The rig which the company is using for core drilling is a purpose-built rotary core rig the company commissioned, allowing for faster drilling and greater borehole stability.
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