Coal Bed Methane Town and Country Planning Act 1990 Appeal

In a letter of 17th October 2001, the Director of Licensing, Exploration and Development Branch of DTI Oil and Gas Directorate made a number of comments, as follows, concerning a four well coal bed methane exploration project in Staffordshire:

The Department of Trade and Industry aims to ensure that the United Kingdom maintains security of energy supply. The UK is currently self-sufficient in energy but will become increasingly dependent on imports of fuel, particularly gas, over the coming years. It is forecast that we could become a net importer of gas in 2005. In this context, the Department's Oil and Gas Directorate is seeking to ensure that all economic petroleum in Great Britain and on the United Kingdom Continental Shelf is exploited in an efficient, responsible and timely manner.

Petroleum (both oil and gas) produced on the mainland of Great Britain currently makes a small contribution to overall UK production compared to that from the UK Continental Shelf. Coal bed methane and coal mines gas - the methane vented from abandoned or working coal mines - offer tremendous scope for further contributions and there are already a number of successful examples of the latter in Britain including several in the East Midlands. In addition, the high methane content (all natural gas contains impurities) makes these fuels highly efficient with consequently reduced environmental impact.

While the exploitation of mines vent gas is reasonably advanced, the extraction of coal bed methane from coal seams is still in its infancy in Britain. However, the exploitation of this resource has a long and successful history in the United States, where it makes a significant contribution to energy supplies.

Britain's huge coal reserves offer considerable potential for the development of a viable coal bed methane industry. However, not all coal seams are identical: they need different techniques to make the gas flow and the lessons learnt from the experiences in the US, while useful, do not provide all the information necessary to underpin technical decisions about exploitation in the UK. Britain's coal bed methane industry is not going to realise its potential unless exploration drilling takes place so that the technical and geological challenges peculiar to our coal seams can be properly tested. The proposal is designed to test the suitability of the coals in this area for coal bed methane production: existing knowledge from mining operations shows that there are very high gas levels in the Staffordshire coal field and the area is, therefore, an excellent candidate for further work.