MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

ENAP exploring for coal methane gas in Magallanes

Chile is exploring for methane gas from the abundant coal reserves in the extreme south region of Magallanes, more precisely 80 kilometers to the north of Punta Arenas.

The operation is being undertaken by Chile's government owned oil and gas corporation ENAP and its Magallanes chapter. A first exploratory well, GMC 2, out of five planned to be drilled in the area has reached 1.100 meters which is considered the critical geological strata for the appearance of such gas. According to reports from Punta Arenas La Prensa Austral, the well in the Loreto deposit at 800 to 1.200 meters deep has the geological conditions containing coal with the sufficient porosity and age to hold methane gas in commercial volumes that make exploitable the resource. "We're extracting the first samples form the sub-bituminous coal we are drilling and will have them tested", said Carlos Herrera head of the ENAP project. Although the project is not new since the first exploration were started back in 1991 but were abandoned because of the low cost of gas and oil, ENAP is planning to invest 10 million US dollars in the methane gas project. Mr. Herrera said that the viability of the project should be known sometime during the second half of next year following on the sample results and if so "full commercial exploitation would begin in a year's time". He added that methane gas extraction was started in the eighties in the United States with excellent results, apparently currently it represents 8% of energy generated in the US, and other countries such as Australia, India, China and South Africa are also making use of the resource. Mr. Herrera said that one of the advantages of methane gas is that wells are relatively shallow and it allows for horizontal ramification from the same well which considerably reduces costs.