Since 1990 our business has been focused on seam gas exploration and development in Australia's most populous state (NSW). At that time, NSW was one of the few administrations lacking indigenous petroleum resources. Carbon Minerals has pursued this goal via a dedicated wholly-owned subsidiary, AUSTRALIAN COALBED METHANE Pty Limited (ACM).

 

Carbon recognised that combustion of  methane  was up to 35% less polluting than the combustion of coal, and that this environmentally relatively friendly resource was capable of providing a short to medium term base-load energy source pending technological development of "renewables" which might ultimately take over this role.  Following assessment of younger basins in NSW which might be capable of providing this resource, we concluded that the Gunnedah Basin offered by far the greatest potential in areas offering fewer impediments to large-scale production than the more urbanised Sydney Basin.

 

ACM concluded that although methane was present in the NSW and northern Victorian sections of the vast Murray Basin (of Tertiary age), development could severely jeopardise the important aquifers of that basin, as the potentially gassy lignites were frequently in direct connection with those aquifers.  ACM, both in its own right, and in joint-venture with others, also concluded that coal development in the NSW sections of both the Surat (and particularly the Coonamble Lobe) and the Eromanga Basins was inadequate to host significant seam gas resources, in marked contrast to the Queensland portions of those basins.

 

The company's persistence with the Gunnedah Basin paid off with the landmark discovery in 2004 of the Late Permian biogenic fairway in PEL 1 (see MAP)

 

Shareholders will be aware that in 2006 the Company purchased "Glasserton" property at Georges Island in PEL 1 to facilitate its exploration activities in the discovery area.  The property continues to be a viable rural undertaking for the Company and we have encouraged ongoing cultivation and harvest consistent with farming practices in the region.  The property also provides land ownership in a highly prospective area containing elevated country which is isolated from the sensitive floodplain (Liverpool Plains).  This elevated grazing country is not underlain by the rurally important shallow aquifers (MAP).