According to statistics on the company’s website, the business has production of 9 petajoules per annum, about 5.41% of Queensland’s total gas consumption of 148PJ in 2007. It is located some 185km southeast of the Port of Gladstone in Queensland.
With the company aiming to settle a deal by April, ACA chief executive Seamus French said the company made a decision to concentrate on coal mining instead of coal seam gas in the Dawson area.
“Given our new strategic focus we consider another company may be better placed to realise the potential of seam gas in the Dawson area,” he said.
“ACA’s Dawson tenements contain around 500 million tonnes of coal and we are committed to developing the mine into a world-class operation.”
He said expressions of interest would soon be sought for the company’s gas interests in the Dawson area, encompassing petroleum production area PL94, exploration permits ATP 564 and ATP 602 as well as access to extract the gas from Dawson’s mining lease area.
French said the sale of the assets was subject to pre-emption by its 49% Dawson joint venture partner, Mitsui Coal Holdings.
Given there are plans for four different liquefied natural gas plants at Gladstone, ACA’s coal seam gas business could attract a variety of oil and gas players including Arrow Energy, Santos, Origin Energy and the BG Group.
The Australian newspaper has said the acreage could fetch more than $200 million according to calculations based on Arrow Energy’s recent $551 million deal for Pure Energy’s Queensland CSG reserves.
