Cougar pursuing opportunities in Asia
Underground coal gasification (UCG) company Cougar Energy says it is not sitting around waiting to get money out of the Queensland government.
The company on Friday said it was pursuing new UCG project opportunities in China, Mongolia and Indonesia.
UCG involves underground combustion and the production of a synthetic gas.
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Cougar has taken the unprecedented move of suing Queensland bureacrats who shut down Cougar's flagship $550 million power plant project at Kingaroy in Queensland's southeast.
The government closed the Kingaroy project after the cancer-causing chemical benzene was found last year in a groundwater monitoring bore on the site.
Cougar says the shutdown was unwarranted and premature; and that there was no threat to life, livestock, drinking water or the environment.
The company has started legal action in the Queensland Supreme Court against the state of Queensland and three officials of the Department of Environment and Resource Management (DERM), seeking more than $34 million in damages.
Cougar also is appealing the shutdown decision in the Queensland Planning and Environment Court.
Managing director Len Walker told shareholders at the company's annual general meeting in Melbourne on Friday that Cougar was not focused solely on the fight with the Queensland government.
The company was seeking to establish UCG projects in Asia, where undeveloped sources of underground coal were plentiful and demand for power was high.
He said Cougar was pursuing realistic opportunities outside of Australia.
"We're not just chasing the Queensland government for money," he said.
Mr Walker said there was great interest in China, Mongolia and Indonesia in technologies that could produce coal-based power more cleanly, including UCG.
Although there were substantive bureaucratic, linguistic, legislative and environmental hurdles to overcome, Cougar had a better relationship with local and central Asian governments than it did with the Queensland government.
Mr Walker said the Queensland government's attitude towards UCG was not reflected internationally.
Cougar chairman Malcolm McAully said the company was suing the Queensland government because it wanted "false claims" about its Kingaroy project corrected in an open court.
It also wanted to confirm Cougar's reputation as a leader in the development of UCG energy projects and "expose the tarnishing of this reputation by the extreme and unreasonable actions of the Bligh government (in Queensland)".
Mr McAully said after the meeting that much of the "misinformation" circulating about Cougar's Kingaroy project came from local farmers and politicians and that it was politically motivated.
"The facts in our statement of claim (lodged with the Queensland Supreme Court) certainly point to that direction," Mr McAully told AAP.
"We belive that the business case supporting the project at Kingaroy and the potential power generation outweighs any of the scaremongering that's been put in the community."
Mr Walker told AAP that the Queensland shutdown of the Kingaroy project had threatened development of UCG power throughout Australia.
"A cloud has been created around about the technology - unreasonably, given the information that we've tabled," Mr Walker said.
"Fortunately, outside Australia, each country understands the situation a lot better."
The company on Friday said it was pursuing new UCG project opportunities in China, Mongolia and Indonesia.
UCG involves underground combustion and the production of a synthetic gas.
Advertisement: Story continues below
Cougar has taken the unprecedented move of suing Queensland bureacrats who shut down Cougar's flagship $550 million power plant project at Kingaroy in Queensland's southeast.
The government closed the Kingaroy project after the cancer-causing chemical benzene was found last year in a groundwater monitoring bore on the site.
Cougar says the shutdown was unwarranted and premature; and that there was no threat to life, livestock, drinking water or the environment.
The company has started legal action in the Queensland Supreme Court against the state of Queensland and three officials of the Department of Environment and Resource Management (DERM), seeking more than $34 million in damages.
Cougar also is appealing the shutdown decision in the Queensland Planning and Environment Court.
Managing director Len Walker told shareholders at the company's annual general meeting in Melbourne on Friday that Cougar was not focused solely on the fight with the Queensland government.
The company was seeking to establish UCG projects in Asia, where undeveloped sources of underground coal were plentiful and demand for power was high.
He said Cougar was pursuing realistic opportunities outside of Australia.
"We're not just chasing the Queensland government for money," he said.
Mr Walker said there was great interest in China, Mongolia and Indonesia in technologies that could produce coal-based power more cleanly, including UCG.
Although there were substantive bureaucratic, linguistic, legislative and environmental hurdles to overcome, Cougar had a better relationship with local and central Asian governments than it did with the Queensland government.
Mr Walker said the Queensland government's attitude towards UCG was not reflected internationally.
Cougar chairman Malcolm McAully said the company was suing the Queensland government because it wanted "false claims" about its Kingaroy project corrected in an open court.
It also wanted to confirm Cougar's reputation as a leader in the development of UCG energy projects and "expose the tarnishing of this reputation by the extreme and unreasonable actions of the Bligh government (in Queensland)".
Mr McAully said after the meeting that much of the "misinformation" circulating about Cougar's Kingaroy project came from local farmers and politicians and that it was politically motivated.
"The facts in our statement of claim (lodged with the Queensland Supreme Court) certainly point to that direction," Mr McAully told AAP.
"We belive that the business case supporting the project at Kingaroy and the potential power generation outweighs any of the scaremongering that's been put in the community."
Mr Walker told AAP that the Queensland shutdown of the Kingaroy project had threatened development of UCG power throughout Australia.
"A cloud has been created around about the technology - unreasonably, given the information that we've tabled," Mr Walker said.
"Fortunately, outside Australia, each country understands the situation a lot better."
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