Riding on underground coal gasification

LINC Energy, which plans to list in Singapore, will divest its coal and oil assets, eventually turning into a pure gas play.

The firm is betting that growth in energy use will be through gas.

"Most of Asia, other than one or two countries, are coal-based economies," said its managing director Peter Bond. "There's a lot of pressure to change that into gas."

Linc Energy is banking on its underground coal gasification (UCG) technology, which Mr Bond describes as "a business with massive growth potential around the world".

Underground coal gasification involves burning coal while it is still in the seam, and capturing the gas, known as syngas.

Syngas is either used in power generation or as a fee…