One billion tonnes of clean coal to be mined from Scottish Coal Field following tie up between British and Australian companies.

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Underground Coal Gasification - to provide low cost , long term, clean secure energy for Scotland.

Fife based company Thornton New Energy Limited and Australian company Riverside Energy Limited have formed a multi million pound joint venture to explore and develop the coal resources under the Firth of Forth in Scotland.

Once exploration and testing is completed, the joint venture will use clean underground coal gasification (UCG) technology to make the most of the vast resources which remain in the Firth of Forth area. Thornton New Energy – a subsidiary of British company BCG Energy Limited – became the first company to be awarded a licence for UCG in the UK in early 2009. BCG is a company that was formed to harness the expertise of the North Sea oil and gas industry in the development of clean energy from coal.

When combined with carbon capture and storage technology, underground coal gasification will offer a long term sustainable, cheap, secure and environmentally benign energy supply which could last the UK for more than 100 years.

“Riverside’s experience and skill set in conventional mining complements our own expertise within BCG, developed in the oil and gas industry, and together we will be able to develop UCG operations much faster than otherwise would be possible,” said Garron Lees, Commercial Director of Thornton New Energy. “We are looking at opportunities for clean coal around the world and that includes on Thornton’s doorstep here in Fife.”

The UCG licence awarded to Thornton New Energy in January 2009 covers 27 square miles (70 square kilometres) of a coal field lying 1,000 to 2,000m or more below the surface, which cannot be mined with traditional technologies. The new joint-venture with Riverside Energy extends the total field area to 95 square miles (240 square kilometres).

Doug Goodall, Managing Director of Riverside Energy, said, “Our experience in energy related mining and exploration lead us to identify the Firth of Forth as one of Europe’s premier deposits for UCG. We can expect extremely high recovery factors without many of the cost factors that are normally associated with deep mining. Although the UK has abundant coal reserves, most deep mines are no longer commercially viable using traditional extraction techniques. UCG is a method of realising the vast potential of this energy reserve in a clean and sustainable manner.”




				UCG utilises proven drilling technology to access the coal seams from the surface without the need to send people underground. The project targets uneconomic coal reserves which are gasified underground. The ‘syngas’ produced is piped back to the surface where it is scrubbed and separated into component gases. After removing carbon dioxide to be sequestered in a nearby saline aquifer or in depleted gas traps in the North Sea, the remaining mix of hydrogen, methane and carbon monoxide is used as the energy source for power stations and for gas-to-liquid (GTL) fuel production. “Our project will generate low-carbon electricity from coal. Electricity produced in this way has a much lower cost than from renewable sources currently under development and it delivers much greater energy efficiency than can be achieved by any modern coal power station.” When it moves from exploration to commercial operation in 2 – 3 years time, the Firth of Forth UCG project will initially generate around 10 MW. This is sufficient to supply around 5,000 homes with low-carbon power, and is the equivalent output from twenty 120 metre high wind turbines. Further projects are planned which will eventually generate upwards of 1GW of energy from the field as it is developed. Thornton New Energy will be based at the Hydrogen Office on the Methil Business Park adjacent to the Energy Park. Keith Winter, Head of Fife Council’s Development Services said: “This is an exciting new development for Fife which adds significantly to the renewable and low carbon proposition for Scotland. It will not only contribute greatly to the achievement of Scotland’s carbon reduction targets but will also bring investment and jobs to Fife. This is a further example of the innovation being developed and applied by companies in Scotland to bring together expertise and to address new agendas and opportunities within the energy market and sector.” Garron Lees Commercial Director of Thornton New Energy concluded “We are taking best practice from the oil and gas industry and combining it with expertise from the coal and mineral mining industries to exploit our abundant natural resources in a clean and sustainable way. All aspects of our project are individually proven and together they produce something which has the potential to be much greater than the sum of its parts.” .