Coal Geology Fundamentals - for the CBM, Mining and Environmental Industries

Start Date End Date Venue Fees (US $)
14 Dec 2025 Roma, Italy $ 4,950 Register

Coal Geology Fundamentals - for the CBM, Mining and Environmental Industries

Introduction

A comprehensive course reviewing the fundamentals of coal geology. What makes your resource play tick? How can we explain the variability, context, and implications? Coal geology is the fundamental building block that underpins successful many unconventional gas, CBM, mining and many environmental projects.

Objectives

    This course is designed to assist individuals throughout the CBM, financial, coal and petroleum industries understand their coal-based play/resource and what drives the success or otherwise of many projects. The course will cover the fundamentals of coal geology in a manner that emphasizes relevance to practical outcomes

Training Methodology

The program is delivered in a combination of lecture-style and computer-based training. In addition, a significant amount of time is set aside for small working group activity when addressing case study problems. Extensive use is made of case study material to underline the key aspects of the course and to give the delegates exposure to current best practice.

Who Should Attend?

This training course is suitable for a wide range of professionals. These include:

  • Petroleum engineers, mining engineers and geologists who wish to really understand what makes a coal-based project tick.
  • Geologists who may have come from another discipline (e.g. hard rock or petroleum geology) and are now working closely with coal or CBM.
  • Potential investors wishing to make sense out of ASX announcements, and understand the key requirements for success.
  • hydrologists, and environmental professionals wishing to understand the interplay between coal seams and water.
  • BM managers who wish to understand the drivers behind CBM variability across a range of basins, and achieve a global perspective on how their play compares with others.
  • Anyone wishing to establish a basic understanding of coal geology.

Course Outline

Industry fundamentals review

  • Overview of the global coal and Coal Bed Methane industry
  • Major projects
  • Likely future directions

Coal fundamentals

  • How is coal formed?
  • The chemistry of coal
  • Understanding the geology of coal
  • Rock structures
  • Stratigraphy
  • Coal petrology
  • Gas formation, origins and distribution in the subsurface
  • Understanding reservoirs and porosities
  • The concept of permeability, and saturation
  • Groundwater and coal
  • Different types of coal beds and depositional environments
  • Where are favorable formations?

Coal Basin Analysis

  • How to assess a coal basin play
  • The tricks, and the traps: what to look out for and how to go about an evaluation of a coal-based play
  • Practical outcomes: how to reduce geological risk in coal-based resource
    plays

Coal and Mining

  • The specific key aspects of coal plays that affect mining
  • How to deal with variability in the subsurface
  • Mining and gas: what’s different to a CBM play?

Coal and CBM

  • The specific key aspects of coal plays that affect Coal Seam Gas operations
  • How to deal with variability in the subsurface
  • Kindred spirits: how to live with overlapping tenure; mining and CBM
  • Groundwater and agriculture: CBM, symbiotic relationships and areas of conflict

Coal and other uses

  • Underground Coal Gasification – where does UCG fit with CBM and mining operations, is there compatibility?
  • Enhanced CBM techniques. “Real time” gas production?
  • Sequestration and storage. Can our coal basins act as CO2 sinks?
  • More on overlapping tenure issues.

Exercises

  • Mini group-based exercises that explore the points above, and assist the learning process, taken from real-life examples.

Accreditation

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