SinoCoking Underground Syngas Project Begins Construction

SinoCoking Coal and Coke Chemical Industries, Inc.

, an emerging producer of clean energy products located in Henan Province, today announced that it had commenced construction of its underground coal gasification (UCG) facility for the production of clean-burning syngas. Located in Pingdingshan, the UCG facility will be the first in China to incorporate carbon capture and store (CCS) technology, a process that sequesters resulting carbon dioxide gas deep underground for decades. When completed in March of next year, the SinoCoking facility is expected to produce 60,000 cubic meters of syngas per hour. Both the UCG and CCS technologies to be utilized at the facility are jointly owned by SinoCoking's two technology partners -- the Institute of Process Engineering of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the North China Institute of Science and Technology -- both of which have designated SCOK as their exclusive agent to commercialize both processes. Construction at the underground facility will be co-directed by Dr. Wenjun Li of the North China Institute of Science and Technology, and the senior technical operations staff of SinoCoking including the company's chief executive officer, Mr. Jianhua Lv. "Today marks yet another key date in the history of our company," commented Mr. Lv. "After many years of research, planning and testing, we have at last embarked on our journey to become the first company in China – and one of the few in the world – to commercialize both UCG and CCS technologies in a single industrial venture. "This project, we believe, will not only help reduce our nation's reliance on the burning of coal for energy," he said. "It will also be designed to avoid the damaging groundwater contamination often associated with previous UCG projects." The result, he said, would be, "a UCG facility representing among the leading technological and environmental achievements in China." Today's announcement follows one on October 20 stating that the company had commenced producing and shipping syngas at its aboveground syngas facility in Pingdingshan. At full capacity that facility is scheduled to produce 25,000 cubic meters of syngas per hour, and may, pending application of a gas compression technology, reach a capacity of 50,000 cubic meters of syngas per hour by the first quarter of next year.