UNDERGROUND Coal Gasification (UCG) has become a bit of a dirty word in recent times, but if Andrew Haythorpe has his way it will become one of Injune's most important industries.

Mr Haythorpe is the chairman and managing director of Liberty Resources, a company that wants to turn the coal in areas north of Injune into urea for the fertiliser export market in the next five years.

He was in Injune on Thursday to discuss his plans and almost 100 locals were there to hear him.

Mr Haythorpe said the process involved adding salty water to the coal as well as a hydrogen product called Syngas to turn the coal into pipeline methane gas.

From there the gas would travel by conventional pipeline to an ammonia plant in Gladstone for the export market.

"It would turn Australia from a net importer of fertiliser to a major exporter," Mr Haythorpe said.

He acknowledged there would be major hurdles to cross not least that UCG remains off limits in Queensland, after the Cougar-Kingaroy debacle.

"Kingaroy was first and foremost a PR disaster," he said.

"There was no community consultation and in the end the background gas levels were in the acceptable range."

Mr Haythorpe said their sites would be well away from town and would be in established "gas traps'' to avoid leakage but the town would need good infrastructure to support the project.

"This is a 50 to 100 year project and this has a profound impact on our approach," he said.

"We don't want it to be Fly In Fly Out - we want a community that is attractive for our workers to live in."

Mr Haythorpe said they hoped to starting building infrastructure by 2015 before commissioning the plants in 2018.

"That is, of course, if everything falls in our favour," he said.