Tata Power, along with its consortium partner Australia-based Arrow Energy, has been awarded the Satpura coal bed methane (CBM) block in Madhya Pradesh during the CBM IV bidding round.
“Harnessing unconventional sources of energy like CBM for power generation will help secure fuel for the end-use power project,” said Prasad Menon, managing director of Tata Power.
Arrow Energy, with an 80 per cent stake, will be the operator of the block. It plans to drill 15 core holes and two pilot wells in the first two years under the Phase-I exploration and 21 pilot wells in Phase-II. Initial production is expected to start from 2014.
CBM is natural gas found in coal reserves where gas is trapped within the coal formation. The gas is extracted by drilling holes into the coal seams that contain gas and are commercially unviable for mining. The gas can be utilised for power generation, CNG and fertiliser manufacturing, among others.
There are four to five coal seams in the Satpura block, with gross coal thickness of 6-15 metre at a depth of 300-900 metres. According to the Director General of Hydrocarbons (DGH), the block, an area of 714 sq km, has about 0.9 trillion cubic feet of gas.
