Asian Coal-Bed Methane Brews As a Potential Hot Energy Play

Massive stores of methane gas buried deep inside Asia's coal beds could be shaping up as the next hot energy play.

Trillions of cubic meters of clean-burning methane are trapped in Asia's coal deposits. The gas -- which produces lower levels of air pollution and carbon emissions than oil or coal -- could be used to meet some of the region's huge power needs. Merrill Lynch says China alone holds nearly 30 trillion cubic meters of methane gas, about three times the U.S. amount.

Coal-bed methane, already widely used in North America, accounts for about 10% of U.S. natural-gas production. But Asia's methane stores have been largely untapped because of logistics and extraction costs.

Now, high-energy prices are making Asia's methane more attractive. New technology and government incentives in China and India aimed at reducing carbon emissions are also bringing down costs. And concerns about falling supplies of traditional energy sources continue to boost the search for other ones: Last week, both Exxon Mobil and Royal Dutch Shell reported declining oil production.

"The basic fact is we're running out of conventional sources of oil and natural gas," says Eric Nuttall, an analyst at Sprott Asset Management of Toronto. "As companies seek out unconventional sources of natural gas, coal-bed methane is the most viable."

The hedge-fund and mutual-fund manager holds more than $5 billion in assets and owns shares of a Canadian-based methane company, Pacific Asia China Energy. The Toronto-traded company has signed two production-sharing contracts with the Chinese government and is negotiating others.

Major oil companies including Chevron and ConcocoPhilips have already locked in exploration rights to methane projects in China. Numerous smaller companies specializing in coal-bed-methane extraction have been forming partnerships in China and India. Since many of these companies don't yet have commercial gas sales, their share prices haven't run up the way those of many companies producing other forms of alternative energy have.

Investing in methane carries plenty of risk. Some of the companies are small, with thinly traded and volatile stocks. Also, China's highly regulated, fragmented energy industry can create uncertainties. To participate in it, foreign companies must partner with state-owned China United Coal Bed Methane.

It is unclear if plans to tap Asia's methane-gas stores will pan out. Companies face fewer exploration risks than those looking for oil, as methane usually is found where it is expected to be. But extracting the gas means overcoming technical challenges that can raise costs and reduce the recoverable volume.

"It's an educated gamble," says Sprott's Mr. Nuttall about companies' efforts. "The question is, will they be able to extract methane at an economical rate?"

Some coal-bed-methane projects will have another revenue stream as the global carbon market matures. Energy produced from methane gas generates lower carbon emissions than coal. Analysts say that means companies may be able to sell carbon credits, boosting revenue by up to 20%. Many European nations place caps on the greenhouse gases companies can produce. Companies can offset their emissions by buying carbon credits from developing-world projects that reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.

"The carbon credits provide that extra incentive and can make these projects commercially viable," says Shane Spurway, director of Asian carbon markets for Fortis bank in Hong Kong.
Pacific Asia China Energy, or PACE, is still in the pilot phase of its first project in Guizhou. Their geological and petroleum engineering consultant, Sproule International of Calgary, has estimated that the company's first block contains a "most likely case" methane-gas resource of 5.2 trillion cubic feet "We know the gas is there," says Craig Christy, PACE spokesman. "Now we've got to determine whether we can produce it commercially."

Mr. Nuttall estimates PACE could potentially produce about 1.8 trillion cubic feet of methane from its first project. At today's prices, he says, that is a value of close to $1 billion for a company whose market capitalization is about $47 million. He is bullish on the prospects PACE, whose shares trade at about 47 U.S. cents.

PACE also hopes to develop a business to extract methane from coal mines before miners go in. Methane the gas which famously kills canaries -- is the source of dozens of fatal explosions in Chinese coal mines every year.

Hong Kong-based Green Dragon Gas, which listed on London's AIM stock exchange a year ago, is one of the companies closest to commercial production. Merrill Lynch says among foreign companies in China, Green Dragon has the largest coal-bed-methane deposit and it has five production-sharing contracts providing access to 18 trillion cubic feet of gas.

Energy-research firm Netherland, Sewell & Associates estimates the value of Green Dragon's initial recoverable methane deposits at about $4.7 billion. The company's market capitalization is about $600 million. So far in 2007, Green Dragon's shares have been roughly flat, though they have risen about 17% since the end of April. Some analysts think there is room for growth. In London trading yesterday, its stock traded at $6.34. Shares of Green Dragon are "relatively undervalued, because the market hasn't factored what will happen when they start production," says David Yip, a utilities analyst at Merrill Lynch in Hong Kong. "It represents the purest clean-energy play in China."

Last week, London-listed Great Eastern Energy became the first company to extract and sell coal-bed methane commercially in India. It is investing $150 million to drill a total of 103 wells in the state of Bengal. By some estimates, India has the world's fourth-largest coal reserves. Analysts say the Gurgaon, India-based firm has already moved beyond the riskiest phase of exploration and pilot drilling and is moving into production.

Arden Partners, a London securities firm, has a "buy" on the stock. James Elston, a director of the energy research firm Palladian Energy -- who has analyzed Great Eastern Energy on behalf of Arden -- estimates that the company's net asset value is about 218 pence ($4.41) a share, based on analysis of their recoverable methane reserves. The shares traded yesterday around 150 pence.

About GEECL:
Great Eastern Energy Corporation Ltd(GEECL) is the first Private Sector Company in India that entered this field. It is a part of the YKM Holdings Group. In December 2005, GEECL became the first Indian Company to be listed on the London Stock Exchange's Alternative Investment Market (AIM). The company is run by Yogendra Kumar Modi, the Executive Chairman and Managing Director. The senior management of GEECL include Mr. Prashant Modi, President & Chief Operating Officer.

About the Author
For further information please contact
Dolly Tayal, Genesis B-M
dolly.tayal@bm.com - +91 9899101140

What is the Outlook for the Availability of Fossil Fuels?

I think this article is comparable to the people who slow down on the highway to look at an automobile accident. You are not involved in the accident, yet you surely are curious about what is happening. At the present time we can sense the presence of a disaster, but we do not have enough information to feel that we can get involved.

My push to adopt renewable energies is based on our continued polluting of the environment with the burning of fossil fuels. We know that we must slow down this pollution so that our quality of life will not be severely degraded. There is another piece of information needed to prod us into action, and that is how long do we have before we run out of fossil fuels? As a current member of the earth, I am concerned that we leave future generation's sufficient energy to bridge the gap from fossil to renewable fuels. This, to me, is looking at the car wreck. How long do we have until we are the ones involved in the wreck?

The majority of Americans now think that climate change is a problem and that global warming is real. But there still is not a sense of urgency. Every year the US emits CO2 that equals the equivalent weight of 1.2 billion elephants (2 trillion pounds using average size elephants). It is time to stop ignoring 1.2 billion elephants in the room. It is time to implement a plan that will adopt renewable energies at a pace to stabilize the environment from CO2 pollution and then, hopefully, start to reduce the amount of pollution we must derive this plan with an eye to how long our reserves of fossil fuels will last. Once we derive this plan we then can look at future generations and inform them "Here is the plan".

The development of modern civilization has been dependent on both the availability and the advancement of energy. We have witnessed a progression from animal and steam power to the internal combustion engine and electricity generation and to the harnessing of alternative sources of energy. Because of our reliance on energy sources, it is also important to understand the impact of energy use on the environment. All aspects of energy, the way it is produced, distributed, and consumed, can affect local, regional, and global environments through land use and degradation, air pollution and global climate change via greenhouse gas emissions.

Over the foreseeable future, it is very likely that fossil fuels will remain our largest source of energy. However, fossil fuels are finite resources and there is concern not only about both domestic supply and U.S. reliance on foreign supplies but, also, with the increasing cost of these fuels.

The research on the longevity of fossil fuels is an exciting adventure in itself. I will touch on some of the theories before I conclude this series of articles. Given the slack of a decade or two, the best summation of the longevity of fossil fuels is presented in "Wikipedia, Fossil fuel: Years of production left in the ground with the most optimistic reserve estimates (Oil & Gas Journal, World Oil)".

Oil: = 45 years Gas: = 72 years Coal: = 252 years
With the slack of plus or minus 10 years, most projections are consistent with the Wikipedia numbers. . The popular Hubert peak theory projects that for any given geographical area, from an individual oil-producing region to the planet as a whole, the rate of petroleum oil production tend to follow a bell-shaped curve. "Olduvai revisited 2008" from The Oil Drum blog is an amazing study. This theory was first laid out by Richard Duncan in1989 when he observed that world energy per capita had been declining for a decade. The Olduvai waveform for oil starts in 1950 which is consistent with the Wikipedia projections that the waveform will be completed by 2053.

The energy consumption of a nation is proportional to its Gross National Product (GNP).i.e. (The higher the GNP of a nation, then the higher its consumption.).To maintain our accustomed standard of living, we require the amount of energy that we are burning now to maintain our lifestyles. With the depletion of fossil fuels this will require renewable fuels to fill in the gap.
How do we hammer this information into a plan? A roadmap needs to be derived that utilizes the adoption of solar, wind, geothermal and biomass energies into our energy consumptions needs. Technologies such as stuffing CO2 into caves should not be adopted until they are proven. A plan that incorporates renewable energies with fossils fuels usage would be more realistic for our country to follow.

How do we proceed?
We must continue tax incentives for the renewable energy sectors to incubate their growth. Our House of Representatives in Congress has passed a bill to renew the energy tax incentives that are due to expire December 31, 2008. President Bush threatens to veto this bill because it taxes the Oil Industry $19 billion dollars from multi-billion dollar profits. The president's premise is that the oil companies require these profits to continue exploration of new oil. Politics aside, we desperately need to find new sources of renewable energy.

We need to demand that our local and national leaders produce renewable energy action plans. There are pockets of leadership like Arizona and California. This leadership needs to be at a national level to be successful for the USA. Once this is accomplished we will be well on our way for future generations.

About the Author
have a BS and MS in Metallurgical Engineering. Thirty six years spent in the development of semiconductors. Business experience in start up business plan. Currently, an oyster farmer and interested in helping the environment by deploying solar energy. Visit my Blog, http://environmentalhelp.typepad.com/ for continued information on renewable energy E Mail: p_calhoun@bellsouth.net