After reading this and other threads for several months, I felt that I might be able to shed some light on some of the issues.
Rentech's latest patent provides for a secondary process that ups their recovery of natural gas to 90%, which is what Syntroleum hopes to be able to do when/if they have a commercial-sized working plant.
It is my understanding that none of the Preferred A stock will be available for conversion for 150 days. Rentech has been down the Reg.S road before and have vowed not to make the same mistakes again. There is a non-short clause (what we see on the announcement is a synopsis of the document) and it is my understanding that anyone caught shorting with the Preferred stocks will be denied conversion, brought to the attention of the SEC and accused of attempting to artificially manipulate the stock's price. By the way, what is worth more, 2 million shares @$5/share or 20 million shares @.20/share? Doesn't take a CPA for that one.
Does anybody know what a refinery does with "refinery bottoms" now? Most large refineries already utilize refinery bottoms in various ways. As it is now, some goes for coke, asphalt,tar and road oils production. The rest is "gasified" and used to create electricity. Some of that electricity is used to run the plant and the surplus is sold off to the local "grid". If this is true, what can Rentech do to improve this scenario? As usual, it's all about money. It seems that the refineries are often paid very low prices for their excess power,($.005 to .01 per KW)and feel that they are losing money on the deal. Rentech's process will allow them to create far more valuable liquid hydrocarbons from their bottoms and excess gases.
PLEASE NOTE: Liquid hydrocarbons are worth more per barrel than crude oil as they are a much purer and more refined product.
PLEASE NOTE: Refineries already have gasification plants. Rentech"s reactors can be retrofitted to these at a substantial savings of both time and money over building a plant from scratch. I have been told that Rentech could deliver a reactor about six months after an order and that the reactor could be retrofitted, tested and on-line in as little as 12 months(in a perfect world).
PLEASE NOTE: The pure hydrogen by-product of Rentech's process has the potential of being used in a "fuel cell" power generator which is both efficient and pollution free, thereby (possibly) allowing for the total diversion of bottoms and gases for processing into far more valuable liquid hydrocarbons.
I also feel that the significance of Yakobson's address to the Singapore conference is being overlooked. He is one of two participants who will be talking about a plant his company has already built and the percentages of recovery realized by their already utilized, commercially viable process. He probably will talk about what Rentech has learned and how they have improved on their technology from their experience. Everyone else will be talking about what they hope to be able to do in the future.
Joe, I have enjoyed your insights. Keep the faith. Will post more if prompted. One worthy topic is "What is a thermal engine?"
PS: I joined SI today so that I could post this. |
