1.2.2 Current activity and tenements

Summary

In the geological Gloucester Basin, coal is largely situated in seams of 30 m average thickness, at depths of 200 to 700 m. It is currently mined at shallower depths of up to around 190 m. The seams are discontinuous both horizontally and vertically. This may reduce the potential for development although further investigation is required to better constrain the known extent. Coal is situated within the Avon Subgroup and the Craven Subgroup of the Late Permian Gloucester Coal Measures and Dewrang Group. Open-cut mining is operating in the Gloucester subregion at Duralie and the Stratford Mining Complex. Both mines are operated by Yancoal Australia Ltd (Figure 5). Excavation of a previously mined and backfilled Roseville Pit to access deeper coal is planned, in addition to new mining activities to extend the Stratford Mining Complex (Stratford Coal, 2012b, p. 2–25).

Coals of the Dewrang Group may contain gas (Ward and Kelly, 2013, p. 56) but the best-known coal seam gas (CSG) resources occur in the Gloucester Coal Measures, towards the upper 200 m of the Avon Subgroup and the bottom 250 m of the Craven Subgroup (Gurba and Weber, 2001 cited in Ward and Kelly, 2013, p. 55). Although there are no full-scale CSG operations in the Gloucester subregion, a pilot project was reported in 2008 at Petroleum Exploration Licence tenement 285 (PEL 285; jointly owned by Lucas Energy Pty Limited and Molopo Australia Limited), and future testing of 4 of 15 wells already drilled by AGL Energy Limited (AGL; known as the Australian Gas Light Company prior to October 2006) (see Figure 6 in Section 1.2.3), is planned under the name of the Waukivory Project, owned by AGL, and described in more detail in Section 1.2.3 .