Argyle kenya

The Argyle-Kenya coal seam gas field in Queensland, 25 kilometres south west of Chinchilla, has been producing commercial quantities of gas for its customer, Incitec Pivot, since July 2007 after development work began in the field during the second half of 2006.

Argyle-Kenya Coal Seam Gas Field Operated by the Queensland Gas Company
The Argyle-Kenya coal seam gas field was originally jointly owned by the Queensland Gas Company with 47.5 percent, Origin Energy 40.625 percent and British owned company, BG International, with 11.875 percent. The field was operated on behalf of the partners by the Queensland Gas Company. The company had entered into an early 10 year agreement, starting in 2007, to supply coal seam gas to Incitec Pivot's Gibson Island, Brisbane, ammonia plant. Another early contract was to supply coal seam gas to Queensland Gas Company's own 140 megawatt Condamine Power Station located eight kilometres east of Miles. In November 2008 BG International acquired the operation and QGC became its wholly owned subsidiary.

Argyle-Kenya Gas Known as Coal Seam Methane
Coal seam gas from the Argyle-Kenya gas field is known as coal seam methane, or coal bed methane. It is derived from gas that has been trapped for millions of years in underground coal fractures. It was originally created alongside the creation of coal from the remains of plants and other organic matter that become heated and compressed. The gas is held in place by water pressure. The gas in the Queensland Surat Basin is composed of 98 percent methane with small amounts of ethane, carbon dioxide and nitrogen. It is easily converted for commercial use. Queensland has been using gas sourced from coal seams for the last ten years or so and today it comprises around 80 percent of its total natural gas supply.

New QGC Office Opened in Chinchilla
In October 2013 QGC opened a permanent office at Chinchilla that has become the company's Surat Basin nerve centre. The new office shares a monitoring system of its field operations with its Brisbane office. The 24 hour a day control room allows QGC to monitor and regulate the operation of its wells, processing facilities and pipeline that takes the gas to Gladstone from where it is now exported to the company's overseas customers. The new office has a staff of 130 QGC employees who are employed to carry out indigenous relations, environmental complience and landholder liason as well as monitoring the company's coal seam gas operations.

QGC has big Plans for Coal Seam Gas Production in Queensland
QGC own around 420 square kilometres of land in Queensland in its own right and does not operate any coal seam gas activities on privately owned land without first obtaining landholder agreement. Current QGC exploratory drilling is concentrated in the Western Downs around the towns of Dalby, Miles and Chinchilla, as well as in the Bowen Basin Region. QGC is planning to drill a total of 6,000 wells covering an area of over 4,500 square kilometres of mining tenements by 2030. These wells will tap the Walloon Coal Measures to a depth of between 300 and 800 metres.

QGC is also busy constructing infrastructure to connect the wells it has drilled, as well as to process the gas and water associated with its coal seam gas production. It is also constructing the largest diametre underground long distance pipeline in Australia. The one metre diametre steel export pipeline will be laid underground for more than 540 kilometres. It will take the gas to the QGC liquefaction plant near Gladstone on Curtis Island.
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