What is Underground Coal Gasification and what advantages does it bring?
Underground Coal Gasification (UCG) is an alternative coal mining method that is operated remotely from the surface. The coal is extracted by gasification rather than the mechanical excavation in conventional mining. To achieve this, oxidising gases such as oxygen, steam or air are injected down a borehole into a gasification chamber in the coal, reactions convert the coal into a gas, and the UCG product gas is extracted through another borehole (please see the short video of the UCG process on our Home Page). Only the coal is removed and any rock mixed with the coal (generally referred to as ash) is left underground. The gas is cleaned on the surface and processed for its specific use at that site. “If you had a process that economically produced a large amount of energy from a relatively small area, negated the need to put people or equipment underground, eliminated surface disturbance associated with large traditional coal mines and utilised – deep coal seams that were previously de
