Coal seam gas at Huntly investigated

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CARBON EMISSIONS: The use of coal to produce electricity soared in the first three months of the year as dry weather conditions put the squeeze on hydro generation, new figures show.

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Gas from coal seams near Huntly could make a significant contribution to national gas supplies if developed, Solid Energy has said.

The state-owned energy company has drilled five appraisal wells west of Huntly in Waikato in partnership with US company Resource Development Technology.

Solid Energy said in a newsletter that the wells were producing enough methane gas to power about 1000 homes if converted to electricity.

With up to 300 petajoules of gas in the field it could make a substantial contribution to future gas supply, said Brett Gamble, Solid Energy's manager of new energy.

But a substantial investment would have to be made to harness the gas.

"We're far enough through the project to know there is gas there and that it's technically feasible to extract it," Mr Gamble said.

The next stage was to assess commercialisation, he said.

The use of gas in coal seams was relatively new in New Zealand. Drilling was expensive and marketing and infrastructure to get the gas to market had to be assessed.

The field was producing extremely high quality gas with a content of 98 per cent methane and 1 per cent CO2.

Options included small-scale onsite power generation or compressing the gas for delivery by tanker.

- NZPA