Coal seam gas case studies

Gloucester Basin, NSW

The PEL285 petroleum exploration licence covers 1,308 square kilometres approximately 100km north of Newcastle NSW.

Lucas has been responsible for the full range of activities to explore and understand its coal structures and tested a range of gas production techniques The success of this work was confirmed in February 2008 with independent certification of 2P (proved and probable) reserves of 170.2 billion standard cubic feet (approx 164 PJ) of gas. As operator of this project, Lucas provides a diverse range of services to the joint venture.

• General administration
• Joint venture accounting, management and reporting
• Relationships with government, community and customers
• Management and direction for operator personnel and contractors
• Field commercialisation activities
• Gaining all the required approvals, including environmental approvals for the field activities and a new pipeline
• Preparation and submission of major project applications, including planning and environmental approvals
• Landowner, land access agreements and community consultation
• Field development
• Approvals for drilling exploration and pilot programmes
• Water management plans for development
• Geological modelling and management of seismic and geophysical data
• Field drilling and production
• Project management and site supervision of exploration and drilling programmes
• Study of basin depositional environment
• Detailed review of gas content data
• Resource assessments and models of the coal distribution across the basin
• Engineering, as well as production management and general and project management
• Continued development of reservoir modelling and resource estimates
• Project management and reporting
• Field production models
• Field development planning, such as front-end engineering design and cost estimates for well planning, gas and water gathering systems
• Drilling and completions (perforated and fracture stimulations)
• Plant and pipeline front-end engineering (FEED)
• Water treatment and effective reuse
• Field operations.

The success of this work was confirmed in February 2008 with independent certification of 2P (proved and probable) reserves of 170.2 billion standard cubic feet (164.4 PJ) of gas.

On 17 December 2008, Gloucester Basin was acquired by AGL Energy Limited from Lucas and Molopo.