The report for the Schuylkill County pulverized coal injection property, which also incorporates the company’s exploration drilling program results, was completed by Norwest and moved about 28.5 million tons of the anthracite coal at Good Spring from potential to indicated and added 129-158Mt of potential coal to its total.
The drilling at the Pennsylvania property reflected sufficient consistent thicknesses at 20 of the 31 seams, making them eligible for further review and 15 of the seams were deemed to have sufficient data to be considered resources.
EmberClear said seven of the seams had total thicknesses ranging between 12.6 and 28.9 feet.
The overall resource estimate was based on an assumed coal density of 103 pounds per cubic foot (1.65 specific gravity).
While some seam borings were made in an exploration program between May 2011 and January 2012, resources were not estimated due to insufficient data spacing.
Nine seams, including the Buck Mountain, Scotty Steel 3, Lykens Valley 1, Lykens Valley 1½, Lykens Valley 2, Lykens Valley 3, Lykens Valley 4, Lykens Valley 5 and Lykens Valley 6, did not receive resource estimates.
Based on EmberClear’s advanced borings and historical mine maps from properties in the vicinity, the company said it felt additional coal might potentially exist at Good Spring.
“The filing of the technical report and the estimation of resource tonnage with coal qualities have shown details of our property which are highly representative of historical anthracite coal in this region, thereby confirming our belief of the Good Spring property being a potentially valuable asset,” chief executive officer Albert Lin said.
“Anthracite coal is a rare global commodity and our coal appears to be well suited for the pulverized coal injection steelmaking market.”Â
The company said Norwest recommended additional core drilling of approximately 12,500ft to increase the indicated assurance categories.
Last month, EmberClear signed an agreement with China’s Huaneng Clean Energy Research Institute for the development of a low-emissions plant in the US which would produce gasoline or diesel fuel from coal.
The coal-to-liquids technology license arrangement was signed in Washington, DC, where the US Chamber of Commerce hosted officials from the People's Republic of China Ministry of Commerce as well as from the US Department of Commerce.
“The White House and the Chinese government both see the immense value of EmberClear's agreement with HCERI, not only in terms of the jobs it will help support but more importantly, it is the cleaner energy we'll be able to provide to Americans in addition to the improved energy security,” Lin said at the time.
“This partnership is a strong example of how American energy companies can work with Chinese partners to provide new lower emission energy solutions while simultaneously creating jobs here in America.”
The company said the fuel generated from the facility was intended to be sold in the US, with the advanced thermal-chemistry technology allowing production with lower emissions than traditional refineries utilizing crude.
Approximately 1000 jobs are projected to come from the project.
Neither timelines nor cost projections were disclosed.
Both China and the US, as two of the world’s largest reserves holders, are working on energy independence solutions.
EmberClear’s efforts include the development of advanced carbon-based gasification, ultra-super critical, supercritical, circulating fluidized bed and post-combustion carbon dioxide capture.
