Mining licence granted for diesel scheme
smh.com.au
September 21, 2006 - 6:05PM
Victoria has approved a 50-year mining licence for a $5 billion joint project by Shell and Anglo American to convert Latrobe Valley brown coal into diesel fuel.
The government approval also requires the project to capture and store underground - a process known as geosequestration - carbon dioxide produced during the process.
Coinciding with the licence approval to Anglo American company Monash Energy, Shell Gas and Power and Anglo American also signed a joint development agreement to advance the project.
The Monash Energy plant is forecast to produce 60,000 barrels of synthetic diesel daily when it comes on stream by the middle of the next decade.
Shell will bring its technology in coal gasification and transformation of gas to liquids to the project.
Potential storage sites for the carbon dioxide have been located already, including in the Bass Strait gas fields.
Premier Steve Bracks boasted the project was the biggest resources development in the state for the past 25 years.
"It will generate a new wave of economic activity in the Latrobe Valley," he said.
"The technology will be able to be exported as unique technology for Victoria."
Victoria will benefit from royalties on the coal mined as well as jobs growth.
The synthetic diesel, said to be of a higher and cleaner quality because it contains fewer impurities including almost no sulphur, will not necessarily be sold in the state.
© 2006 AAP
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Anglo teams up with Shell
fin24.co.za
21/09/2006 11:36
By: Gareth Tredway
Johannesburg - Anglo American, the global mining giant, said in a statement that it had signed a joint development agreement with oil giant, Shell on the Monash Energy project in Victoria, Australia.
During next year, the first phase of the deal would have been completed, according to Anglo. This phase will see advisers from both companies studying the commercial and technical aspects of the project.
"If successfully concluded, the study will form the basis for the feasibility phase and demonstration activities," said the statement.
Anglo says the Monash project would involve Shell's coal gasification and diesel production technology using Anglo's brown coal production in Victoria's Latrobe Valley.
"The combination of Anglo American's resource capabilities with Shell's technological leadership in clean coal energy will be important factors as we aim to progress the Monash Energy project from concept to feasibility stage," Tony Redman, chairperson of Anglo Coal added.
In May this year, Anglo first announced the alliance with Shell in the field of coal to clean energy conversion. |
