Stage I of a revamped ZeroGen Mark II project at Queensland is expected to be completed by 2012.  ZeroGen involves two stages: the first, the development of an 80-megawatt net coal gasification demonstration plant; the second, a proposed 300MW commercial net coal gasification plant with carbon capture and storage facilities.  Both stages will use integrated gasification combined cycle technology and carbon capture and storage.  The plant will capture up to 75% of carbon dioxide emissions and demonstrate underground storage capabilities.  The second stage will be capable of capturing up to 90 percent of carbon dioxide emissions.

U.S. and China are in a joint venture to extract coal mine methane at the Hebi coal mines in the Henan Province in China.  The project is being coordinated by Tulane University’s U.S. –China Energy and Environmental Technology Center (EETC), with Central China Sakei Technology, Inc. as the managing partner.  The $2.8 million project will begin in mid to late 2008.  Initial plans call for the installation of twenty-two 500kW generators to use the coal mine methane drained from the Hebi mines and creation of a ventilation air methane oxidation facility at one of the mines.

Homeland Energy Group Ltd, Toronto, Ontario, announces that its subsidiary Homeland Mining & Energy SA (Pty) Ltd has received a mining license for the Kendal Coal Mine in Witbank from the South Africa Department of Minerals and Energy.  Mining is expected to start in the second quarter of this year, following commissioning of the on-site crushing and screen plants and the 200tph Parnaby Cyclones wash plant.  Kendal is designed to handle approximately 6,000 tons per day, producing approximately 112,000 tons per month of saleable coal.

The Tata Group and South African partner Sasol by the Indian government for an $8 billion coal-to-liquid project (CTL).  Tata is seeking 30 million tons of coal per year to produce 3 million barrels of oil and 1,500 mw of power for the CTL project.

Reliance Power Ltd has acquired an Indonesian coal mine in South Sumatra for $10 billion rupees.  The mine has resources of 2 billion tons.  The greenfield mine will be the main source of fuel for Reliance’s power project in Krishnapatnam at Andhra Pradesh.  The project would require some 14 to 15 million tons of coal annually.

Indiabulls Power Services Ltd., an Indian energy company, has a contract to build a 1,600 megawatt thermal plant at Chhattisgarh, and has won the right to a 350 million ton coal mine.  The plant will be built in three years and will have a yield of 2 rupees a unit on its sale of electricity.  Value of the coal mine is estimated at more than $7 billion.  Indiabulls Power is also setting up 4,000-megawatt power plants in two sites in the western state of Maharashtra.

Miranda Minerals has six contiguous properties including Sesikhona awaiting a new-order mining right to exploit the 22-million ton reserve in the eastern KwaZulu-Natal province.  Sesikhona could produce up to 50,000 tons a month, most of which will be exported.  KwaZulu-Natal coal is a high quality anthracite coal.  Miranda is also looking at coal possibilities in Mpumalanga, Mozambique and Botswana.

ETA Star India Projects Pvt. Ltd, a subsidiary of ETA Star Group, is planning a public offering to fund new power projects in the country.  Proceeds will go toward creating a 10,000MW capacity in India. Locations for setting up power projects include Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Karnataka.  The company has firmed up plans to set up a 1,200MW power projected in Tamil Nadu. ETA Star Group has acquired a coal mine in Mozambique with a reserve of 100 million tons.

Zambia plans to construct a new coal-fired power station using the Maamba Collieries, which has coal reserves of some 78 million tons, enough to last for over 70 years.

Homeland Energy Group, based in British Virginia Islands, expects a license to begin production at the Kendal mine that could reach a production of 1.8 million tons a year by the third quarter of this year.  Construction at the mine in South Africa’s Mpumalanga province has been completed and the washing, crushing and screen plants are to be commissioned.  Plans are underway to build a large opencast mine with production of some 6 million tons a year. 

Vietnam’s state-owned Vinacomin mining company plans 10 new mines and an increase of 20 million tons of coal production per year by 2015, an increase of almost 50 percent.  Vietnam has cut exports for 2008, diverting to domestic demand.

Xstrata Coal’s Glendell opencut mine has continued production following approval for mine modification, which will increase the run-of-mine (ROM) production from 3.6 million tons to 4.5 million tons per year.  Glendell is located at Hebden in the Upper Hunter Valley of New South Wales.  The $A290 million investment into the mine will create up to 100 construction jobs and 150 operational jobs ever the life of the operation.

Coal reserves in China stood at 1.03 trillion tons as of 2006, the worlds third largest, concentrated in the northern and northwestern parts of the country.  Shanxi contributes a quarter of the nation’s total output.  China’s raw coal output last year reached 2.51 billion tons and consumption reached 2.58 billion tons.  China reported a 20.2% decrease in the number of fatalities caused by coal mine accidents in 2007, but added that 3,786 people were killed in the mines last year.  Chenhua Group, China’s largest coal producer, produced 235 million tons of coal in 2007 and has projected to produce more than 250 million tons of coal in 2008.

Linatex Europe has partnered with Cyriac Tor, a manufacturer of hard metal slurry pumps in the United Kingdom.  Linatex will sell the Cyriac Tor range of pumps branded the Linatex CT Pump range initially in Europe and North and South America with a global rollout expected later this year.  The Linatex CT Pump has been engineered to optimize abrasive slurry handling and fits a wide range of mining applications.  The pumps are available in sizes ranging from 50/32 up to 250/200 and offer a range of sealing arrangements.

Pakistan plans to use international competitive bidding to generate power from its coal reserves, estimated at 185 billion tons.  Bids for setting up coal-fired power plants will be invited after several months, by which time the prerequisite procedure is expected to be completed.  Thar Coal Mining Company has been established to undertake production of 1000MW.  China Machinery Import Export Corporation wants to mine coal from Sonda Jerrukh, also in Sindh, for producing power, and have submitted a feasibility study.

Derba East Coal Mining Plc, a joint venture of Debra MIDROC and East Africa Holdings plans to produce over one million tons of coal in surface and underground mining, initially to be supplied to Derba-MIDROC and Dire Dawa cement factories.

China Shenhua Energy Co Ltd has started production at Buertal coal mine in Inner Mongolia that will produce 20 million tons a year.  Total investment in the mine was $638.2 million.  Shenua expects its coal output to grow to 177 million tons in 2008.

In a strategic partnership with North American Coal Corp., Reliance Power Limited, Flagship Company of the Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, plans to develop three coal mines to fuel its Sasan Ultra Mega Power Project in Madhya Pradesh.  Approval is expected from the ministry of coal.  Sasan Power has some 750 million tons of coal reserves at Moher, Chattrasal and Moher-Amiori Extension over an area of about 6,000 acres.  The Sasan project is scheduled to go on-stream with the first 660 MW unit of the 3,960 MW project within a few years. The project will require about 15 million tons of coal a year.

Gujaret NRE Coke, Mumbai, plans to invest $425 million in the next three years to develop its mines.  The Kolkata-based company will increase production at its NRE No. 1 mine to 4.5 million tons by fiscal 2012 and at its Avaondale and Elouera mines, located in Australia, to 2.5 million tons by fiscal 2013.  Coking coal production from Australia is expected to reach 7 million tons by 2013.

Construction is underway in central Queensland for a $206 million “oxyfuel” power plant at the Callide power station which will be fitted with oxy-firing technology. Oxy-firing technology burns coal or fossil fuels in a mix of oxygen and re-circulated waste gases, creating a stream of carbon dioxide that can be captured, liquefied and stored. 

A memorandum of understanding (MOU) has been signed by Queensland’s Linc Energy, Vinacomin of Vietnam and Marubeni of Japan to develop an underground coal gasification project in northern Vietnam.  Linc Energy will undertake Stage 1 of the project to demonstrate that the coal deposit in the Red River Delta in northern Vietnam is suitable for underground coal gasification.  It is expected to power between 1.5 and 2 million homes in Vietnam, and eventually as many as 6 million homes with cleaner energy.

Keaton Energy announces an in-situ coal resource of 206.1 million tons at its Delmas and Sterkfontein projects in the Mpumalanga Province of South Africa.  Keaton is in the process of applying for a mining right for the Delmas project which may be its flagship project.  The company plans to produce some two million tons a year of coal within three years, and as much as five million tons over the long term.

A coal mining museum in the Zonguldak province, Turkey, will open next year, marking the first of its kind in the country.  The coal mine in the Black Sea region was used as a shelter during World War II and later as a training center for mine workers.  Coal mining began here in 1880 and was terminated in 1910.

National Development Corporation of Tanzania has signed a joint venture agreement with Atomic Recourses subsidiary, Pacific Corporation East Africa, to develop selected coal projects in southern Tanzania. The JV covers coal mining and exploration within the Mhukuru and South Ngaka coal fields and subsequent investigations into power generation and distribution.  A new company will be formed with PCEA and NDC as shareholders.

Cockatoo Coal reports a measured resource of 103 million tons of coal at its Guluguba project in Queensland’s Surat Basin.  Mincom completed the review and modeling of the results of a drilling program.

Metex Energy and CSIRO joint venture company Carbon Energy has the go-ahead for a trial demonstration of the world’s first commercial-scale oxygen-injected underground coal gasification project in Queensland.  Carbon Energy is expected to begin construction of the $A20 million 1 petajoule per year UCG project in Surat Basin.  The resource is estimated to contain 2000PJ of energy with approximately 1000PJH that is potentially recoverable using UCG extraction technology.

Sultan Mining and Energy Development Corp. plans to increase production at its mine in the southern province of Surigao del Sur to some 300,000 metric tons this year, from less than 100,000 in 2007.