Australia: ‘Cinderella’ gas a new gold rush

AS the world desperately searches for new energy sources to replace oil, Queensland has suddenly found itself the subject of a global tug of war over its massive reserves of coal seam gas.

Bob Bryan and Stephen Bizzell are a generation apart but they have both made millions from a new energy source transforming Queensland into a national leader — coal seam gas.

It also propels Queensland to the forefront in the new energy source, making the state potentially more significant than the North-West Shelf in terms of gas production and the CSG boom as transformational as the Bowen Basin coal rush.

Long known as the poor cousin to coal and conventional oil and gas, CSG is just as it sounds: natural gas extracted from coal seams, rather than from conventional rock formations.

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