Together with its existing projects in Yunnan province, the deal now makes Far East the third largest holder of CBM acreage in China and company chairman and CEO Mike McElwrath is pleased with the turn of events.

“This is the moment that we have been waiting for. The two blocks of the Dragon Project have enormous potential, even more than our Yunnan projects, and located as they are astride the two largest pipeline projects in China, serving the two largest cities in China, we have been anxious to get our drilling program in Shanxi underway,” said McElwrath, referring to the West-East pipeline project to Shanghai and the Shanjing II pipeline to Beijing.

According to the numbers, conservative estimate of gas-in-place in the Dragon Project is 13.1 trillion cubic feet. This means, coupled with data gathered from Yunnan, indicate Far East’s total CBM original gas-in-place is around 19.5 to 26 trillion cubic feet.