Shell, Anglo Put Australian Coal-To-Liquids Project On Hold
Dow Jones - December 1, 2008 9:27PM EST
MELBOURNE -(Dow Jones)- Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSB.LN) and Anglo American PLC (AAL.LN) said Tuesday they won't move to the next stage of a planned coal-to-liquids project in the Australian state of Victoria, citing rising construction costs.
A spokesman for the project vehicle, Monash Energy, said the project partners had decided not to move beyond the concept phase for now.
"All that has been decided is that this is not the time to move into the next phase and we will extend the concept phase into the future," he said.
"Capital cost and construction cost escalation that we have seen over the past few years were certainly factors that were having an impact on the economics."
Monash Energy, based in Melbourne, will continue with concept assessment work to optimize the design of the project, he said.
Shell and Anglo announced in September 2006 that they had joined forces to work on the project, which they touted as a "world scale" coal-to-liquids development that would bring together Anglo's large brown coal resource in Victoria's La Trobe Valley with Shell's proprietary coal gasification technology.
-By Alex Wilson, Dow Jones Newswires; 61-3-9671-4313; alex.wilson@dowjones.com
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12-01-08 2127ET
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