In our dispatch of 7/30, we reported on: "US Patent 3,988,237 - Integrated Coal Hydrocarbonization and Gasification of Char", which was issued, in October of 1976, to a group of West Virginia scientists in the employ of New York's old Union Carbide Corporation.
In the disclosure of that technology, consistent with other reputable sources we have documented for you, it was revealed that Steam could be used in the gasification of Coal to produce an hydrogenated synthesis gas which could then be catalyzed into hydrocarbon "gaseous and liquid fuel products".
Big Oil must have gotten wind of what was going on that year down in South Charleston, and jumped in.