Chair and Introduction to UCG with an update on current activities around the world

Rohan Courtney, OBE Founding Director, UCG Partnership and Chairman, Clean Coal Limited

Rohan Courtney is a Founding Director of UCG Partnership which he formed together with Michael Green towards the end of 2005. He was a career banker for 27 years including 8 years as Chief Executive in Europe of State Bank of New South Wales. He has been involved in energy for most of his career. He ran a world wide media public company for five years and was a company doctor also for five years. He has served on a number of public company boards and was a non-executive director (Senior Independent Director since 2000) of Tullow Oil plc, one of Europe's largest Independent Oil and Gas companies, from 1993. to 2007. He was also Chairman of the Audit Committee. He is Chairman of Stockval Holdings plc, Artemis Energy plc, World UFO plc and Clean Coal Limited.  He has been involved in underground coal gasification activities since 2003.

The UCG Process – How is it done? From site selection to first burn

Burl Davis, Carbon Energy

Burl has over 40 years experience in alternative fuels from coal. He has worked in direct and indirect coal liquefaction, Coal Water Mixture Fuels, coal beneficiation, and with Underground Coal Gasification since 1976.  He has published articles on most aspects of UCG including UCG resource evaluations, environmental permitting, laboratory studies, and economics. He was a co-founder of Energy International formed in 1985, a spin-off of the Gulf-Chevron merger, and worked with them until 1998.  He has worked with the present Carbon Energy staff on UCG since 1999 joining Carbon Energy as Chief UCG Technologist in 2007.

Technical Director
1977-1985 Gulf Oil Corporate Program
1977-1982 Rawlins UCG-SDB Program
1986-1988 Rocky Mountain 1
1987-1990 UCG to Ammonia
1994-Huntly 5-Spot (New Zealand)
1994-1998 Williams Corporate Program
2008-9 Bloodwood Creek UCG Trial

The Drilling process

Jonathan Lightfoot, Scientific Drilling, Houston

Jonathan Lightfoot holds the position of Coal Bed Methane Business Development for Scientific Drilling.   He has 11 years with SDI primarily involved with Directional Drilling, MWD/LWD Operations, and Rate Gyro Surveying.  He earned a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the UL at Lafayette.  He has worked as an in-house directional well planning engineer for Shell, ExxonMobil and Chevron in a variety of North America Drilling areas.  He is a member of the SPE, IADD, IPAA and ASME. 

Jonathan has most recently been heavily involved with CBM horizontal, multi-lateral & multi-seam drilling projects over the last six years in the San Juan, Arkoma, Cherokee, Black Warrior, Cahaba, Raton and Appalachia Basins.

Uses of Syngas

Dr. Rachid Oukaci

Energy Technology Partners, LLC (ETP)/In-Situ Energy, LLC

Dr. Rachid Oukaci is a founding Partner and Chief Technology Officer of Energy Technology Partners, LLC (ETP).  He has over 25 years experience in Fischer-Tropsch catalysis and process development.  In the last five years, he provided technical assistance to a major international oil company for the scale-up and commercialization of their proprietary Gas-to-Liquids catalyst and process. Formerly, at Energy International Corporation (EI)/ Williams Companies, Rachid was responsible for a leading edge R&D catalyst and process program that resulted in the development of a proprietary F-T process and a number of patented F-T catalysts.  He has also conducted extensive research in Fischer-Tropsch in his previous position at the University of Pittsburgh where, as a research faculty, he co-managed several F-T related research projects funded by the US Department of Energy.  He continues to hold a visiting research faculty position in the Chemical Engineering Department at the University of Pittsburgh.  In the early eighties, Rachid held the positions of project leader and then head of a department in SONATRACH’s R&D Centre in Algeria.  Rachid is the main lecturer of the World GTL Summit’s Executive Briefing organized by the CWC Group, which has been running annually since 2002, as well as the main contributor to the training courses on GTL Fundamentals being held by the CWC School of Energy in Qatar and South Africa since 2007.  He is author or co-author of numerous publications related to F-T catalysis and process, 9 US patents and several foreign counterparts, and numerous presentations.  Rachid is a senior member of AIChE, ACS and North American Catalysis Society.  He holds a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Pittsburgh and a BSc. and MSc. in Fuel and Combustion Science from Leeds University in the United Kingdom.

Physics and Chemistry of UCG

Dr. David Camp, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Dr. Camp is a chemical engineer and UCG project leader at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California.  His research, publications, and R&D project management experience include underground coal gasification modeling and project support; oil shale properties, pilot operations, and process modeling; coal pyrolysis pilot experiments and process design; porous media flow experiments; contaminated subsurface sampling and remediation; and other technologies in support of the U.S. national interest.   His work in UCG dates to the late 1970’s, including papers on water permeation, spalling phenomena, and the effect  of spalling on water influx, heat balance, and cavity growth.

Environmental Standards and Practices

Mary Bloomstran, Edge Environmental

Education

• Colorado School of Mines: B.S. Chemical and Petroleum Refining Engineering, 1979
• University of Northern Colorado:  Course Studies in Master of Business Administration, 1981

Summary of Professional Experience

• Edge Environmental, Inc., 2006 - present
• Golder Associates, 2005 - 2006
• PIC Technologies, Inc., 1988 - 2005
• Energy International, Inc., 1985-1988
• Gulf Research & Development Company, 1980-1985
• Rockwell International, Rocky Flats Plant, 1978-1980
• Phillips Petroleum Company, 1977

Ms. Bloomstran is currently President of Edge Environmental, Inc., a firm that specializes in obtaining permits and approvals for the energy industry.  She has over 30 years of experience in environmental analysis and process design of energy-related projects in the western United States. 

Selected UCG Project Experience

1980-1985  While working for Gulf Research & Development Company, served on the operations team for the Rawlins 2 UCG Test in 1981.  Continued to work on site closure for the Rawlins North Knobs Site.   Spent 30 days as an observer of the Lawrence Livermore UCG test at the WIDCO mine in western Washington in 1983.
1985-1988  As an employee of Energy International, Inc., was part of the operations management team for the Rocky Mountain 1 UCG Project in Hanna, Wyoming.  As a team member, participated in site characterization, permitting, facilities design, test plans, and operation of the test.
Also during this timeframe, worked on the commercialization of the Rawlins UCG Demonstration Clean Coal Facility.  Responsible for writing proposal to obtain funding for the project.  Responsible for supervising subcontractors to obtain baseline biological, cultural, and hydrologic data in support of the Permit-to-Mine application.
1988-1995  While a Principal at PIC Technologies, Inc., was responsible for obtaining all permits and approvals for the Carbon County UCG Project near Rawlins, Wyoming. 
1995-2008  Serves as a consultant to Williams regarding site closure for the Carbon County UCG Project with the end goal of obtaining full bond release. 

Publications, Technical Reports and Presentations

Numerous publications on the subject of Underground Coal Gasification. 

Lunch

How much does it cost (and comparison with other energy sources)

Dr. Julio Friedmann, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Julio Friedmann is one of the most widely known and authoritative experts in the US on carbon capture and sequestration and underground coal gasification. In his current appointment as Carbon Management Program Leader for Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, he leads initiatives and research into carbon capture, carbon storage, and fossil fuel recovery and utilization. In this role, he has testified before the US house, Senate, and several state legislatures, published in Foreign Affairs and the New York Times, and worked with the EPA, USGS, many private companies, many NGOs, and Dept. of Energy. He is a principle co-author on the MIT “Future of Coal Energy” Report, the National Petroleum Council report “Facing Hard Truths”, and the World Resources Institute “CCS Guidelines” report. Julio has led technical work on In Salah, Weyburn, Sleipner, and large CCS projects in China. Julio received his B.S and M.S. degrees from M.I.T., followed by a Ph.D. at the Univ. So. California. After graduation, he worked for five years as a senior research scientist in Houston, first at Exxon and later ExxonMobil. He next worked as a research scientist at the Univ. of Maryland, collaborating with the Joint Global Change Research Institute (JGCRI) at the Univ. of Maryland, and the Colorado Energy Research Institute at Colorado School of Mines. His research interests include carbon sequestration, underground coal gasification, hydrocarbon systems, deep-water depositional systems, basin & range tectonics and sedimentation, sequence stratigraphy, and landslide physics. A native of Rhode Island, he has worked in CA, WA, UT, WY, CO, Spain, Ireland, the North Sea, Nigeria, Angola, Venezuela, Azerbaijan, and Australia.

UCG Partnership activities and future plans

Julie Lauder, Director, UCG Partnership Limited

Julie Lauder has over twenty years experience in marketing and events management across a wide range of industries. She has advised companies on marketing and sales strategies and is often asked to speak on marketing and public relations issues to various interest groups including women in business and company start-ups. She has extensive experience in marketing and event management in the Arts, horticulture, trade associations, accounting, commercial finance, education and website development. She has been involved in promoting underground coal gasification since 2003 and now assists the partnership full time looking after the website, membership/training and regularly presents on the perceptions of UCG outside the industry and the need to engage with a wider audience, especially the public.

General Forum

All speakers