The Sunday News
DISCOVERY Investments will start the extraction of methane gas at its Lupane concession for use by various industries before the end of the year, an official has said.
Discovery Investment managing director Mr Tendai Hove said the exploration activities carried out over the past four years had indicated that there was abundant methane gas within the company’s 100 000 hectares concession but a feasibility study was being carried out to ascertain its appropriate use.
The proposed project is largely situated around Mzola and Dandanda communal lands with the southern boundary of the concession following the Kana River up to the confluence with Shangani River.
“The project is going on very well. We have managed to set up pilot wells and these have indicated that the gas is present, what’s left now is to ascertain what purpose the gas will be used for. We should be able to carry out a full feasibility by year end and we will be selling the product to any interested client,” Mr Hove said.
He, however, said primarily methane gas was used in power generation and fertiliser production.
The company intends to start extracting the gas using three production wells of which the fumes would be pumped straight from the source into the buyers’ tankers.
The company has successfully obtained an exploration Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) certificate from the Environmental Management Agency and had its Mining Prospectus approved by the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development. It has also rehabilitated the drilling sites exposed during the exploration process.
Its environmental consultancy firm, Environmental Guardians Service said the company was pumping out the gas on experimental basis to ascertain if the fumes are “enterprising”.
“We submitted a gas mining Environment Impact Assessment document about a month ago. At the moment the company is pumping out the gas to ascertain its enterprising rate.
“We can safely say they are still at an exploration stage while we wait for a response from the Environmental Management Agency, which we are expecting within 60 working days,” said the environmental consultant, Mr Michael Montana.
Another coal mining company, China-Africa Sunlight Energy, which has set sights on exploring for methane gas at its Gwayi concession, has indicated that it was considering partnering Sable Chemicals to extract the resource.
The company intends to pipe its gas for domestic use in Hwange and eventually Bulawayo.
