Author(s)

Jose A. Gutiérrez, Raquel García, Erasmo Cadena

Department of Mining Engineering, University of León, Leon, Spain.

Coal during its carbonization process produces a gas. This gas, mainly formed by methane, can be used. This gas, coalbed methane (CBM), is usually mainly formed by methane and can be considered similar to natural gas as energy source. The evaluation of the techno-economic feasibility of the extraction of this gas depends on a large number of complex different factors. The work carried out covers the different aspects to simplify the first approach for CBM feasibility quantification considering a short number of indicators. A theoretical review and a state of the art description have been carried out, taking into account all the factors that can influence in the development of a CBM project. After that, technical feasibility has been used to evaluate total amount of gas that can be recovered. The last step was to evaluate economic feasibility to know how much gas could be economically profitable. Conclusions got have been used to develop a simple method for evaluating CBM economic feasibility considering just four easy known parameters of coal beds. These are: the rank, the thickness, the gas concentration, and the permeability.

CBM, Feasibility Assessments, Coal, Natural Gas

Gutiérrez, J. , García, R. and Cadena, E. (2018) Novel Simplified Method for Coalbed Methane Feasibility Evaluation. International Journal of Clean Coal and Energy, 7, 59-92. doi: 10.4236/ijcce.2018.74004.