Australian ASX-listed energy company Kinetiko has completed a successful trial to generate power from onshore gas at Amersfoort in Mpumalanga.

A single gas well in the Korhaan cluster of five wells, Korhaan-1, nicknamed ‘The Beast’, powered a 1,2 MW gas generator on May 5 in what the company described as a first for South Africa.

The trial is part of the company’s efforts to develop conventional gas projects in Mpumalanga, Free State and KwaZulu Natal with a view to providing for South Africa’s transition to renewables.

Kinetiko’s partner in the venture is FFS Refiners, with which it holds a non-binding memorandum of understanding and intention to co-develop and co-fund gas production fields in South Africa.

“The successful demonstration primes the company’s plans to develop an LNG production cluster of approximately 30 wells at this location as part of its joint venture with the Industrial Development Corporation of South Africa,” Kinetiko said in a statement.

Kinetiko holds rights to a six trillion cubic feet (tcf) gas resource. By comparison, PetroSA’s Mossgas plant was constructed based on a resource of 1,5 tcf.

For the trial, a fully compliant gas train was constructed on-site to feed the 12-cylinder gas generator supplied by Barloworld Johannesburg. It was disassembled after the four-day trial and returned to Barloworld.

During the trial, the gas quality was measured at close to 99% methane and 1% nitrogen during the flow periods. Gas samples were also collected for laboratory analysis.

Kinetiko said now that the proof of concept had been completed, it and FFS intended to further their collaboration to develop an LNG production field. FFS has an existing relationship with the micro LNG containerised production group Galileo Technologies.