Coal Seam Gas (CSG) is natural gas
Coal Seam Gas is a natural gas by-product of ancient plant matter, trapped in the fractures or ‘cleats’ of underground coal seams. It can be used in the same way as traditional natural gas for cooking and heating, and is particularly suited to electricity generation.
With Australia Pacific LNG supplying more than 40% of Queensland’s gas, that’s good news for Queensland.
CSG has been around for a while
CSG has been known about ever since the coal mining industry began around the early 1900's.
With advances in technology, it has developed into a cleaner transition fuel which is helping us lower our carbon footprint on Australia. CSG now makes up most of Australia’s natural gas supply, with the Australia Pacific LNG Project providing the largest CSG resources in Australia.
Australia Pacific LNG already supplies gas to power stations to produce electricity it also supplies gas to major industrial customers, homes and businesses throughout Queensland.
Exploration for CSG in Queensland began in 1976 in the Bowen Basin, but the CSG industry did not really start to grow until the early 1990’s. Commercial production began in Queensland in 1996, so it’s been around for a while.
The Project’s joint venture partner, Origin, has been working in regional Queensland for about 30 years and in the field of CSG for about 15 years, so as you can see CSG is not a new industry for Australia.
How CSG sits on the surface of coals
CSG collects in underground coal seams by bonding to the surface of coal particles. The coal seams are generally filled with water and it is the pressure of the water that keeps the gas as a thin film on the surface of the coal (the technical term for this is ‘adsorption’).
The level of gas that can be produced from a coal bed depends on the thickness of the coal, gas content, permeability and the depth of the coal seam. In high quality CSG deposits the cleats are permeable enough to allow gas and water to flow freely through them.
Coal seams that can produce CSG economically are usually 200 to 1,000 metres below the surface.
In Australia, CSG is plentiful.
