State-owned miner, Solid Energy says that it will soon manage to get resource consents, so as to burn Waikato coal underground, in an offer to turn 30,000 tons of coal into a hydrogen gas over the coming two years time.

The $22 million underground coal gasification direct project in the north Waikato was proclaimed today, after a competitor L & M Energy submitted application for prospecting rights over 2000sq km of the Waikato considered to hold more than 2 billion tons of coal with comparable plans to burn coal underground.

Solid Energy said that it desired its UCG operation in progress by the commencement of 2011 within the firm's on hand Huntly West coal mining license region.

LME, which made plans to pipe its gas production to Auckland customers, has demanded permits bracketing the Huntly coal mines, which manufacture coal for supply to power generation and New Zealand Steel.

Both firms are of the opinion burning coal underground to gasify coal will unlock access to deep, which is quite difficult-to-reach; coal seems nearly not possible to mine making use of conservative technology.

Solid Energy's General Manager New Energy, Brett Gamble, said the corporation had exhausted five years examining the technology's appropriateness for New Zealand conditions.

A Petroleum Engineer, and Senior Lecturer at Auckland University, Dr. Rosalind Archer, said that she understood this would be the initial commercial usage of UCG technology in New Zealand.