The company said the Rodney Creek 8 well drilled on the crest of the Rodney Creek Anticline encountered an aggregate of 24.77m of Betts and Aramac coal measures considered thick enough to be potentially worthwhile producers of CSM.
These coal seams are gassy, low in ash and permeable due to strong cleating, except for 3m of the 7.4m-thick R1 seam, which is higher in ash and not as well cleated, according to Galilee, which is 67%-owned by coal miner Eastern Corporation.
"Core evaluation and in-hole geophysical logging have demonstrated that there is a moderately high degree of seam continuity within the Galilee ATPs [permits ATP 529P and ATP 729P], although seam splitting is present," the company said.
"The gas composition is 97 to 98 percent methane with both ethane and carbon dioxide being about 1 percent, and absolute coal permeability is moderate to high compared to other gas producing fields."
Gas contents range from 2.8 to 6.6 cubic metres per tonne on a raw coal basis (at normal temperatures and pressure). The gross average value of the 26 samples is 4.2cu.m/t and the median value is 4.4cu.m/t, Galilee said.
The Galilee Basin is very much frontier territory, but the Queensland Department of Mines and Energy has said the northern Galilee Basin has the potential to be a major hydrocarbon-producing region with potential for CSM and conventional petroleum, as it contains a similar succession, in age and rock types, to the Cooper and Bowen basins
"Significant gas and oil shows suggest that the basin has the potential to contain commercial quantities of hydrocarbons," a recent department report said.
Other companies exploring the Galilee include Comet Ridge and Origin Energy, which is waiting on ministerial approval for the transfer of three permits from Tri-Star Petroleum Company.
