Following the Department of Mineral Resources’ (DMR’s) granting joint venture (JV) gas company Afro Energy bulk gas sampling permission for 500-million standard cubic feet/y over the next two years, the company believes that the early-stage revenue sales from the permit will provide an initial gross cash flow of about $8-million in the first two years.
AJV initiative between Australia-based gas exploration company Kinetiko and South Africa-based gas exploration company Badimo Gas, Afro Energy has identified natural gas in coals and sandstones in all 21 gas exploration core wells that it has drilled since 2011 in Amersfoort, in Mpumalanga, South Africa.
“With the aid of conventional technology that is internationally proven and does not require fracking, we were able to discover conventional gas flow from sandstones adjacent to the coal seams trapped by impermeable dolerite sills and dykes that are present across all the tenements,” said Afro Energy technical head Paul Tromp during a site visit earlier this month.
Also, through exploration, the project showed that coal seams were at depths of between 300 m and 500 m, which meant that confin- ing pressures resulted in high gas contents in the coal, but not so deep that pressures had begun to collapse the permeability of the coal.
Emphasising the importance of the sandstones, he indicated that this meant that there would be quick potential revenue from the sandstone horizon before the coal-bed methane production.