TMK Energy says it has proven mobile gas can be flowed to surface at its Gurvantes coal-seam gas project in Mongolia’s South Gobi Basin, flaring first gas from its Lucky Fox-1 well for three hours.

The company says it will now complete an extended production test at the project as it aims to prove continuous gas flow by increasing pump rates in all three of its wells – Lucky Fox-1, 2 and 3. It believes that will cause more coal seams to reach critical desorption pressure and release their stored gas pay.

The three production wells combined are currently producing about 500 barrels of water per day, in line with reservoir modelling and current pump rates. And the produced water will not go to waste in the arid Gobi Desert, with TMK agreeing to provide coal miner Mongol Alt LLC (MAK), which also owns the Gurvantes lease, with early-stage water from the well tests to feed its nearby power and water-hungry coal mining operations.

The company has moved with purpose at Gurvantes since earlier this year when it discovered thick gassy coal intervals of up to 68m in its Lucky Fox wells. It has installed three sets of downhole pumps and driveheads, in addition to surface gas-handling facilities in preparation for production testing.

The test data will feed into TMK’s prefeasibility study for the project, which has an estimated (2C) contingent resource of 1.2 trillion cubic feet of high-methane gas.

Gurvantes is operated by TMK as part of a joint venture with Perth-based partner Talon Energy and signals the company’s commitment to long-term gas production in Mongolia, where it has an exploration licence for 15 years in an area widely regarded as one of the most prospective coal-seam gas basins in the world.

Gurvantes is close to the Chinese border, which is less than 20km south of the project. China’s huge west-east gas pipeline sits another 280km across the border.