'Gas-monetisation edge turning Sasol into energy heavyweight'
engineeringnews.co.za
Gas-to-liquids (GTL) and coal-to-liquids (CTL) plans were propelling Sasol to global energy-heavyweight status, Sasol CE Pat Davies told journalists in Qatar on Tuesday.
He was in the Middle Eastern emirate to inaugurate the Sasol-Qatar Petroleum GTL Oryx refinery, the world's largest GTL plant that will produce saleable diesel and naphtha from September.
Davies said that when investors looked at gas-monetisation options, they assessed reward and they looked at risk. The reward case was clear and Sasol was quite confident that oil prices above $35 a barrel made gas-to-liquids (GTL) a far better gas monetiser than liquefied natural gas (LNG), which was in far more widespread production. Investors, however, continued to wrongly perceive GTL as a process confined to South Africa, and not as one that had gained widespread acceptance.
That was why Sasol had referred to the start-up of the new Sasol-Qatar Petroleum GTL Oryx refinery in Ras Laffan, 80 km north of Doha, as a “definitive moment”, because it had reduced the GTL risk profile significantly.
Once GTL Oryx ran and operated and there was a payback, risk would be seen as having been lowered and reward elevated.
“The interest in GTL will then skyrocket,” Davies predicted.
At the moment, Sasol was a global business as far as chemicals were concerned, but only a fringe participant in energy. But with the company's GTL and CTL plans realised, the company would become a 'real heavyweight' in the global energy business as well.
The feasibility of implementing CTL in China was at an advanced stage of study, with interest also from India and other countries.
Required for CTL were sources of low quality and consequently as low-cost coal, he said, and, where this was available, the implementation of CTL could be an option. |
