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Stock Quotes |
OUR COAL AND COAL/SHALE GAS PROGRAM The Company owns, leases or has targeted for ownership or lease eleven properties for acquisition through lease agreements or purchase in fee. Near term the focus is on six projects currently permitted to mine coal, or currently in the process of filing mining permits. Management expects that over the next 3-5 years Sharpe’s CBM program will contribute significantly to revenue and cash flow augmenting coal production revenues and cash flow. Gas to be sold on spot market, recovery costs are minimal, cost of infrastructure capitalized. The Company also will be directed toward achieving conventional gas production in the CBM productive project areas including conventional gas producing wells, pipelines and associated infrastructure facilities. The objective is to develop a fully integrated operation of CBM wells and conventional gas wells. The Company’s goal is to develop its own coal assets through a joint venture with, or acquisition of: (a) an operating company with complementary coal assets; and (b) a coal-marketing group to support the growth and development of these assets. Preston County, WV Sharpe’s first and largest acquisition, purchased in 2006, is a lease of more than 17,000 acres of mineral rights in Preston County, West Virginia containing seven coal seams. The Company is initially evaluating the potential of developing two surface mines and two underground mines on this property position. According to engineering estimates from CME Engineering of Frostburg, Maryland, Sharpe’s Preston property contains approximately 100 million tons high btu, medium sulfur steam coal reserves/resources. Management estimates that, if these four mines are fully developed, production levels from this property could attain 20,000 tons per month per mining operation. In addition to potential coal production from this property the potential exists for the development of a large scale coal bed methane (CBM) program on the Preston County, West Virginia property. CBM has become an important source of pipeline-quality gas in the United States. Beginning with development in the San Juan and Pieance basins in the Western US and the Black Warrior basin of Alabama in the 1980's, natural gas production from coal bed reservoirs has grown from virtually nothing to more than five percent of the total US gas production today. One of the biggest gas plays in US history is occurring in the Powder River basin of Wyoming and southern Montana, with discovery of commercial amounts of methane gas associated with coal beds. The Appalachian Basin development is one of the more successful development programs outside of the Powder River basin and other western coal basins. The Gas Research Institute and US Geological Survey have indicated that the resource potential is more than 60 tcf for this region. To date, efforts have been concentrated on the Pocahontas coals found in the Central Appalachian region of southwestern Virginia and adjoining West Virginia. In the Northern Appalachians the development of the Freeport and Kittanning coals in northern West Virginia and adjoining southern Pennsylvania have been underway on a much smaller scale for several years, more recently CBM in conjunction with the Marcellus shale play has revealed that this region contains major sources of natural gas that will supply the large northeastern consumer and the industrial natural gas market in this sector of the US.
Wolfe County, KY (Campton Mine)
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