Operations

With a significant reliance on gas from Russia and North Africa through established pipeline infrastructures, Europe has been slow to exploit its incumbent resources from CBM and CMM. Technological advances particularly in Australia and the USA has established these sources of energy as mainstream supply. Europe is endowed with substantial coal resources which have potential to provide a secure source of energy and Terra has identified a number of key projects in selected European countries to commercial its strategy.

Ireland

Sweden

Terra energy has recently acquired 4 exploration concessions in the Narke region of central Sweden, which has extensive outcroppings of the Alum shale formation. Interestingly Svenska Shell have recently acquired exploration concessions covering vast areas of Skane Lan in southernmost Sweden. These concessions cover the entire known extent of the Alum shale in this region

The Alum shale formation in Sweden is a unit of predominantly dark shale with various organic rich grey shale and silts, locally some sandstones and bituminous limestones are also seen. All units in the formation are unusually enriched with organic matter which is the primary requirement for hydrocarbon production, sometimes up to 20% within the dominant dark shale units. Also seen throughout the formation are small lenses of almost pure organic matter, called “kolm” locally, as well as banded, nodular and disseminated Iron sulphides. This unit is also known to contain usually high levels of Uranium, Thorium and various other irregular elements.

The unit as a whole is Middle Cambrian to Earliest Ordovician in age and is developed extensively across the Scandinavian Shield, particularly in Sweden where it has an extent at surface greater than 25.000km², most of this is seen in the north within the Caledonides where there is much tectonic repetition. It is on average 20m—30m thick although locally it can reach thickness' over 100m . Geologically the unit represents a prolonged period of extensive shallow marine deposition, in near anoxic conditions on the Baltoscandian platform which was tectonically very stable during the late Cambrian and early Ordovician.

The Alum shale has been mined with varying degrees of success since the mid 1600’s. Originally for the potassium aluminium sulphate (K Al (S0₄)₂ 12 H₂0) know locally as Alum salt. Since it was discovered at the turn of the 21^th century that some units within the formation were readily combustible, and furthermore that oil could be extracted from other non-combustible units, the formation has been mined countrywide for power generation and oil production. Elsewhere many failed, and some successful projects have managed to extracted economic volumes of Uranium from the alum formation, the most recent of these achieving upwards of 80% recovery. There is also significant volumes of Vanadium within the formation, although to date viable extraction has proven problematic.

Egypt

Terra has signed an MOU with the Ministry of Petroleum in Cairo. The MOU grants Terra an exclusive first option to finalise a PSA on any one prospective CBM site (CBM Concession) in exchange for Terra completing a feasibility study on CBM potential in Egypt, following the completion and preparation of Study and spending commitment of approx. US$1M. This right would exclude Terra from any public tendering process, but would not hinder Terra from participating in a Tender for other areas. The genesis of this proposed arrangement is based on the agreement The Ministry of Petroleum hold with Centurion Energy International Inc, a subsidiary of the UAE based Dana Gas Public Joint Stock Company concerning the potential from oil shales in Egypt. The selected CBM Concession would total an area in excess of 150 sq km. The area of interest will cover both the Western Desert and the Sinai Peninsula