Do you know that methane (natural gas) also occurs with coal? For a long time, we associated this natural gas with petroleum, but explorations have shown that coal bed methane does exist. India is planning to venture in this field of methane production from coal, the country’s most abundant fossil fuel resource. Great Eastern Energy Corporation Ltd (GEECL) is exploring, developing and managing production wells for India’s first commercial project in Coal-Bed Methane (CBM) in Damodar Valley, Raniganj coalfields, West Bengal. By doing this, the company is saving environment from getting polluted due to escape of methane into the atmosphere, thereby helping in maintaining the ecological balance in Bengal’s coal bearing areas. Methane being a greenhouse gas makes mercury rise higher, thus contributing to global warming.
Large quantity of methane gas is stored within coal beds, which often comes out during mining. Most of the methane being found in shallow depths makes drilling and digging effortless, inexpensive and cost-effective. However, in greater depths, exploration becomes difficult as increased pressure within seals any fractures making it harder for the gas to run out. But, the difficult part is the serial in which methane occurs. The natural gas lies on top of oil that lies on top of water. In several cases, water permeates coal beds making it difficult to explore and to extract methane from coal beds, water has to be drawn off first, that will lower the pressure for gas to gush out of the well bore. The water drawn out is in most cases saline that can act as an environment hazard. Therefore, its disposal is of utmost importance. GEECL uses hydraulic fracturing process by injecting a fracturing fluid that causes pressure to build up pulling the fracture apart, hence making it easy for water to separate from gas. Once water moves out, it propels gas flow.
GEECL is the first private sector company of the country to have entered this field, thus making India one of the select countries in the world in coal bed methane exploration. So far, GEECL has drilled 23 wells out of which 9 wells are producing 991,000 cubic feet (MSCFD) of methane every day. Having abundance of coal reserves, other Indian companies like Reliance and ONGC can also venture into this field, which can act as an alternative to importing large barrels from abroad and help in combating environment degradation due to methane. Moreover, it’ll also help substantially in India’s fight against global warming.
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Via: Green Car Congress
