Batchelor meets Anglo on coal venture
Mark Hawthorne
February 9, 2007
theage.com.au
VICTORIA could lead the world in turning coal into transport fuel after multinationals Royal Dutch Shell and Anglo American made Melbourne-based joint venture Monash Energy their top global research priority.
Monash Energy is developing the coal-to-diesel technology in Victoria's Latrobe Valley.
New Victorian Energy Minister Peter Batchelor has met Monash Energy executives twice this week to discuss the coal-to-liquids project.
Yesterday Mr Batchelor met Anglo American's incoming chief executive, Cynthia Carroll, who was here this week inspecting Anglo's Australian assets as part of a global tour before she starts her new job in mid-March.
The Age has been told that talks between Ms Carroll and Mr Batchelor focused on Monash Energy and the potential of Victoria's carbon dioxide geosequestration project near Warrnambool, which is trying to store carbon dioxide safely underground. The trial geosequestration project has received $4 million in State Government money. The project is expected to begin depositing carbon dioxide underground by the end of the year.
If the geosequestration project fails, Monash Energy will be unable to dispose safely the carbon dioxide created in production.
"We turn coal into gas, and then turn the gas into liquid fuel," said Monash Energy executive manager of public affairs Scott Hargreaves. "In the
first stage, from coal into gas, we create CO2 as a byproduct, and that needs to be removed."
Last May, Anglo and Shell formed the Clean Coal Energy Alliance (CCEA) to develop coal projects around the world. Monash Energy is the first project to be funded by the CCEA and has been listed as the alliance's top global priority.
Monash Energy, which has been co-owned by the energy giants since last September, is developing technology to convert Victoria's vast reserves of brown coal into diesel fuel.
The potential exists to produce 60,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day from Victorian coal — Bass Strait now produces 100,000 barrels of oil a day — worth more than $15 billion a year. This is enough diesel to cover nearly 9 per cent of Australia's transport fuel needs.
The Monash Energy project will build a coal mine, drying and gasification plant, carbon dioxide capture and storage facility and a gas-to-liquids (GTL) plant. The project is expected to cost $5 billion and Monash Energy plans to produce commercial quantities of diesel fuel by 2016.
As part of its geosequestration plan, the Victorian Government plans to build a pipeline from the Latrobe Valley to a carbon dioxide storage facility. Access to this pipeline, which the Government has dubbed a "CO2 hub", would be open to energy producers and industry to dispose of carbon dioxide emissions.
The CO2 hub to a geosequestration plant would allow new low-emission coal power plants to be built, or existing plants to be refitted with low-emission technology. |
