Chaucer Energy’s ISG expertise results from the 20 year working relationship between the Company's Managing Director Dr Len Walker, and Dr Michael Blinderman, Managing Director of Ergo Exergy Technologies, the International leading provider of ISG process technology. 

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Dr Walker’s geotechnical and managerial background has provided the skills to evaluate and select coal deposits suitable for ISG project development, to negotiate appropriate permitting, and to organize financing for project development.  This has led to the initial ISG demonstration at the Chinchilla site (1999-2004), which is still one of the two largest syngas production demonstrations outside the Former Soviet Union (FSU), where the technology was originally developed.  The demonstration project involved continuous gas production over a period of 2½ years, followed by successful site rehabilitation.  The subsequent trial at Kingaroy (2010) was designed to advance to power production, but was shut down by Queensland Regulation and has since been successfully rehabilitated.

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Dr. Blinderman’s ISG career commenced in the Former Soviet Union and for 8 years he was Leading R & D Engineer at the Laboratory of Underground Coal Gasification in the USSR Academy of Science, Moscow.  Following his move to Montreal in 1994, he set up Ergo Exergy as a specialist ISG technology company, and commenced his association with Dr Walker in 1996.  This involved 3 joint visits with Dr. Walker to the then operating ISG site at Angren in Uzbekistan, and an agreement to utilise the technology in Western Countries, commencing with Australia.  Subsequently, Ergo Exergy has also initiated successful demonstration projects in South Africa and New Zealand.

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Dr Blinderman was the lead co-author of the first book in 40 years drawing together the past and recent history of ISG, in which Dr Walker authored two Chapters on the Australian experience.  (Refer to “Underground Coal Gasification” edited by Michael S. Blinderman and Alexander Y. Klimenko, published by Elsevier in November 2018.)

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The association between Dr Walker and Dr Blinderman is unique in the ISG field, with the joint focus on translating their combined expertise into the construction and operation of a small commercial ISG/power project, to be later followed by a wide-ranging use of syngas produced from the process to provide a source for manufacture of valuable products such as fertilisers, chemicals or liquid fuels.  They are supported by a number of key individuals experienced in ISG operations.  For Chaucer Energy, this includes Valeri Melik, an electrical engineer involved in the design, construction and operation of the Kingaroy plant, and a group of consultants in the geological and hydrological fields who worked on the Chinchilla and Kingaroy projects.  For Ergo Exergy, this includes access to a range of ISG specialists trained either in the FSU, or directly under Dr Blinderman.