Warmer temperatures ahead for most of the United States in the coming winter could spell doom and gloom for many speculative coalbed methane (CBM) company. According to a recent forecast by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration, “Natural gas prices this winter are expected to be significantly lower than last winter. Not only are there probably no hurricane caused to be production losses but the very high levels of natural gas in storage is expected downward pressure on natural gas prices this season. “They believe the Henry Hub natural gas spot price to average $ 5.40 mcf in October and may average $ 7.53 for 2007.
Sprott Asset Management research analyst Eric Nuttall told us during an earlier interview that the economy of Coal Bed Methane (CBM) companies would be “very skinny under $ 6.” This past April, Nuttall cautioned that his money management business was “very excited about the prospects for companies with coal bed methane assets so long as natural gas prices remain above $ 6 per Mcf (thousand cubic meters).” Unfortunately, that’s not the case. The supply of natural gas abundance and warmer weather would drive consolidation in the CBM sector.
On the other hand, this is not the case for CBM companies who took a leap across the Pacific. Instead of joining the ranks of companies postpone exploration program, as some of their counterparts in Alberta, two CBM exploration programs to move full steam ahead with development projects in natural gas car hungry China. Both Far East Energy Corporation (OTC BB: FEEC) and Pacific Asia China Energy (TSX: PCE; Other OTC: PCEEF) recently announced encouraging developments in developing their projects in the world’s most populous country.
Far East Energy announced on Monday it was successfully achieved continuous gas flow in its third horizontal well Shouyang Block in Shanxi Province in China. Pacific Asia China Energy announced yesterday it had received favorable gas from three of his six well testing program on its Mayi Block in Guizhou province in China. Content Although some of the Alberta CBM companies would complain about their survival through the first winter reduced wet gas prices since 2001-2002, these two CBM companies seem to accelerate in China. Their development
In the past year, but we will keep developments in both companies. On October 17, Far East Energy is holding a conference call, and we hope to report on developments with this company after that time. This past week, Dr. David Marchioni had developments in progress exploration Pacific Asia China Energy (PACE) on an oil and gas conference in Montreal, Canada presented. We conducted a tape-recorded telephone interview with Dr. Marchioni, who serves as the vice president of exploration for PACE.
Stock Interview: Can you update us on your progress Guizhou Province project PACE’s?
Dr. Marchioni:
The project is on schedule. It’s expectations. We have validated data. We have no surprises. I think we’ve established that we have pretty good gas content at shallow depths. It’s something we thought we knew, but we validated that. This gives us hope for permeability at shallow depth. It also gives us two ways to gain access to the basin. Access We will drill several vertical wells in the shallow area and horizontals in the deeper area.
StockInterview: PACE is drilling since last winter. What do you think you are in the province of Guizhou Baotian-Qingshan Basin?
Dr. Marchioni:
In short, we believe we have a world-class resource here. The gas content, coal thickness, gas in place, and the resources per square mile would be very favorable compared to playing one of the more famous CBM. We have up to 20-odd meters of coal. We have up to 375-400 cubic meters of gas per tonne.
StockInterview: How to compare gas contents of your home with other CBM properties?
Dr. Marchioni:
It compares with the resources of a number of big plays, like San Juan (New Mexico) and Black Warrior (Alabama) or the Deep Mannville in Alberta (Canada).
StockInterview: You had talked about getting a good gas content at relatively shallow depths in the basin. Can you explain that?
Dr. Marchioni:
In each basin, gas content usually increases with depth. Permeability decreases exponentially with depth. Gas content is usually linear with depth, increasing. Permeability is exponentially decreasing. Usually you have an optimal range where you’re acceptable, economic gas content and acceptable permeability economic gain. Clearly, the shallower you go, the better the permeability is going to be. In most basins, the shallower you go, the less gas you get. In this basin, the content of gas are so high that even going shallow, we are still in the 175-225 range at 300 meters. What it means for us is that 300 meters, based on a lot of other plays in the world, you can expect pretty good permeability. And getting 200 at that shallow depth is very encouraging. It is higher deep.
StockInterview: What does getting good gas content at shallow depths mean in terms of producing gas economically?
Dr. Marchioni:
It means you have a much better chance of having economic permeability because at shallow depths. The deeper we go, we know we’re going to lose permeability with depth. That’s what happens in each basin. And we not only lose linearly, we lose exponentially. So the shallower you can produce, as long as you get decent gas content numbers, the better you are, because you have much more chance of achieving good permeability. And you’re going to save on drilling money. It’s a lot cheaper to drill 300 meters, it is to drill 800 meters.
Stock Interview: Have you found working with CUCBM the Chinese government, which the show for CBM operations in China is difficult?
Dr. Marchioni:
Our relationship is very good. We had no problems or disagreements. We see the relationship with CUCBM as a great advantage. Some people would probably imagine working with the government might not be. A great thing However, we find it very advantageous because they have a large portion of the heavy work for us. They do a lot of regulatory stuff. They get a lot of play of the army, of the environment and of the Ministry of Commerce. We do not have to. To those things They do it for us. As an example, we signed our Guizhou production-sharing contract in November (2005), and we had a hole in the ground in February (2006). That would be even hard to do in Alberta.
StockInterview: Is it hard working in China with the Chinese?
Dr. Marchioni:
I would say it goes very smoothly. The CUCBM has helped us with the regulatory affairs. They put us in contact with drilling contractors, with seismic contractors. They have templates closed for real. The Chinese drilling companies are all used for drilling coal. They have extensive experience with coal. The seismic guys have done a lot of coal seismics. The first word of CBM is Coal. Working with people who are very familiar with coal is quite advantageous.
StockInterview: When do you think PACE could sell its gas?
Dr. Marchioni:
I do not think we have to sell a lot of problems. We have received many industrial users in the region. We have been approached by people talking about investing in the company to get the first right of refusal. They are so desperate for gas. We did not cut any deals because we do not produce any gas. Potentially, we could see the sales by the end of 2007 if we get reasonable numbers. There is potential to have low sales volume by the end of 2007. If it is successful, and it all depends if it is successful, we would flaring of gas from the middle of the end of Q1 to Q2 at least.
StockInterview: In previous interviews, we discovered PACE would have cash flow drilling venture with Australian Mitchell through its joint. Is that the joint venture in progress?
Dr. Marchioni:
It progresses. We have a country manager was in place for China. We are about to send to Australia for training people. The way it comes to the deployment of the joint venture is buying two rigs. We need to get our first rig in december. We will use it for ourselves or go directly to drilling for other people. Potentially, it could early cash flow. The second rig would likely come in January. The one we will definitely use for ourselves because we adapted specifically to some of the fairly rugged terrain open in our project.
StockInterview: How much do you pay for leasing us a drilling rig, and what are the margins?
Dr. Marchioni:
Drills than $ 1 million / month, probably $ 1,250,000 per month. Good margins. I think probably 30 to 40 percent margin.
Stock Interview: Was there no interest of Chinese coal mines mines that Mitchell’s Dymaxion ® drilling technology degassing?
Dr. Marchioni:
The joint venture will continue to contracts degassing coal mines. The Chinese government is pushing very hard to have coal mines drain the gas from their mining blocks before they go and mine them. Mitchell’s has done that before. They are very experienced in this, and they are very good at extracting gas at relatively shallow depths and at a reasonable price. Nathan Mitchell and PACE President Tunaye Sai went to a one-day conference in the same province where we operate in, talk about degassing. They had a great interest. The government is pushing them very hard.
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