PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Singapore-listed Linc Energy on Thursday said that it would “staunchly” defend itself against claims by the Queensland government that the company’s Chinchilla underground coal gasification (UCG) research and development facility caused environmental harm.

Earlier this month, the Queensland government charged the company for allegedly breaching environmental laws, with Environment and Heritage Protection Minister Andrew Powell saying the charges followed a detailed nine-month investigation in relation to the company’s pilot UCG plant.

“While the harm allegedly caused to the environment is considered serious, the information available to the department suggests there is no immediate risk to neighbouring land-holder water bores.

“The department is continuing its formal investigation into the activities of Linc Energy,” Powell said.

Linc said on Thursday that the complaint and summons served by the Queensland government were not specific about what the nature of the alleged environmental harm was.

“I do not see these allegations as being material to the company or the future of UCG. They will not affect the normal operations of the company in any way, or the various expansion plans we have for UCG around the globe, and the reality is it will take two years or more for this process to play out,” Linc MD and CEO Peter Bond said.

He noted that the common thread of the allegations related to issues around older-style technology.

Linc’s generation five (G5) commercial UCG operational process developed in 2010 and onwards, was not mentioned, nor affected by the allegations.

“It must be remembered and indeed put into context that Linc has had an ongoing dispute with the Department of Environment and Heritage Protection for a number of years now, a rift that essentially is based around the department’s lack of knowledge of UCG and their unwillingness to learn about the UCG process,” Bond said.

“This has led to issues of miscommunication and misunderstanding by some people within the department and vice versa, so I guess it’s no surprise that this dispute has occurred.”

Bond noted that the other key issue was that this long-running rift, which originated from a political issue where the department was involved with the coal seam gas (CSG) versus UCG dispute, started several years ago under the previous state government.

“The actions of the department have had the effect of causing great distrust and suspicion by Linc and many of its stakeholders, subsequently undermining the opportunity to work in a collaborative manner. Because of the widespread belief that the department has run an agenda against the UCG industry over several years now, operating a UCG site within the state of Queensland is now viewed as a sovereign risk issue, which is why Linc decided to shift all its operations except its head office out of Queensland some time ago,” Bond said.

“I am obviously disappointed that the department has not afforded Linc the opportunity to formally respond to any allegations prior to this point in time. While we were aware that investigations were being undertaken, we assumed that we would get the opportunity to set the record straight,” he added.

He reiterated his belief that the company had not caused environmental harm, as alleged, saying that it had monitored the groundwater at site to a degree that far exceeded its legal obligations under its environmental licence requirements.

“As a show of good faith to our community and neighbours, Linc will publish the past few years of water sampling data on our website, which clearly shows there are no water quality issues at all for them to be concerned about and puts these allegations into context - essentially being a difference of opinion.”