Client News-CLEAN COAL LTD SECURES LICENCES TO INVESTIGATE UNDERGROUND COAL GASIFICATION AT FIVE UK SITES

For information/interview, please contact Clean Coal Ltd’s Chairman: Rohan Courtney on +44 (0)7879 498544 or rohan.courtney@cleancoalucg.com

PRESS RELEASE, 9^th December 2009

CLEAN COAL LTD SECURES LICENCES TO INVESTIGATE UNDERGROUND COAL GASIFICATION AT FIVE UK SITES

The UK Coal Authority has awarded Clean Coal Ltd licences to investigate the potential for underground coal gasification at 5 sites in the UK. If the investigations over the next 12-18 months prove to be successful, commercial operations could start by 2014/15 and could lead to underground coal gasification producing 3-5% of the UK’s total energy requirement by that date. This would be the first time that gasification of underground coal has featured in the UK energy market.

Clean Coal Ltd is a British/US company that specialises in underground coal gasification. As well as the UK, it is seeking to develop projects in other parts of Europe, Asia and North America.

In the UK, the UK Coal Authority has awarded the company licences to investigate five underground sites offshore from:

o Canonbie, Dumfrieshire

o Cromer, Norfolk

o Humberside

o Sunderland

o Swansea Bay

The investigations will include seismic and borehole surveys and the investigation areas range from 40 to 100 square kilometres and the depths of the coal range from 500 to 1200 metres below ground. The combined coal reserves for the five sites are estimated at around 1 billion tonnes.

Rohan Courtney, Chairman of Clean Coal Ltd said: “Recent developments in directional drilling technology and the growing need for new, secure and environmentally benign sources of energy means that underground coal gasification now merits serious investigation. This is an exciting and commercially viable development which can bring significant benefit to the UK economy.”

Underground coal gasification (UCG) is a method of converting deep seam coals into a combustible, high-quality and affordable gas than can be used for power generation, industrial heating, or the manufacture of hydrogen, syngas or diesel fuel. The gasification of coal in-situ is achieved by drilling boreholes into the coal and injecting water/air or water/oxygen mixtures. It is both an extraction process (like coal mining) and a conversion process (gasification) in one step (NB. see attached briefing note for more information).

Clean Coal Ltd expect to commence the site surveys in the first half of next year, and will host public exhibitions in each area to give local people the chance to know more about the work that will be undertaken.

For further information:

Clean Coal Ltd (www.cleancoalucg.com)

Rohan Courtney OBE, Chairman

Tel: 01483 832227 / 07879 498544

Email: rohan.courtney@cleancoalucg.com

Or

Catherine Bond, Chief Executive

Tel: 07788 872770

Email: cbond@cleancoalucg.com

Notes to Editors

1. The Clean Coal team has extensive experience in energy activities, underground coal gasification, coal mining and production. Its skill base extends through production development, project management, geology, chemical and industrial engineering, hydrogeology, seismology, modelling tools and directional drilling. Clean Coal has formed a grouping of the world’s most experienced UCG specialists. The team that developed and operated the only EU backed trial to be undertaken in Europe is strongly represented together with specialists with significant UCG knowledge.

2. Interest in UCG as a secure and economic source of energy has increased over the past five years. Most coal producing countries now have a comprehensive UCG programme comprising of feasibility studies, planning demonstrations and commercial scale projects. In-seam and Directional Drilling technology, formulated for the oil and gas industry, has transformed the UCG process, making it easier, more successful and more commercially viable.

3. Commercial scale projects have started in Australia, China, South Africa and India. Large-scale operations (>1GW) were developed by the Soviets in the 1970s and at least one plant in Uzbekistan still operates today. Low natural gas prices in the 1990s eliminated much of the ongoing development in US, although in Europe, a substantial programme of development in deeper seams was maintained until the present day. Extensive trials in Europe, the US, Russia, Australia, have proven the technology on many occasions.

4. In an article published in the August 2009 edition of Modern Power Systems, Kenneth Fergusson, Senior Independent Advisor to the UCG Partnership and former head of the UK Coal Authority said: “in contrast to the limited reserves of mineable coal in Britain, reported by the Coal Authority as less than 200 million tons, and being extracted at a rate of about 20 Mt per year, a study by DTI in 2004 predicted that there was about 17 billion tons of potentially gasifiable coal onshore in Britain; a parallel estimate produced a figure at least double that offshore, a total of over 50 billion tons. Expressed as life of the resource, this is centuries of our total national energy consumption and at least a millennium of CCGT output at projected rates. Even with uncertainties about the recoverability of the coal in place, the size of the resource for UCG is not likely to be a constraint for a very, very long time”.