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Gold/Mining/Energy : Gasification Technologies -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dennis Roth who wrote (332)	3/23/2006 7:23:21 AM
From: Dennis Roth	Respond to of 1740

Petro SA unveils Qatar venture David McKay Posted: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 miningmx.com [miningmx.com] -- PETRO SA is negotiating construction of a 12,000 ton/day fuel grade methanol plant in Persian Gulf country, Qatar, as South Africa’s state-owned oil and gas firm seeks to diversify its international business. “We’ve completed a pre-feasibility project and are waiting for a response for the Qatari government,” said Willem de Meyer, vice-president of new ventures at Petro SA. “This is not a bidding process, but a negotiated arrangement,” De Meyer said. He was speaking at the Oil Africa 2006 conference in Cape Town. Petro SA operates the world’s largest gas-to-liquids complex at Mossel Bay in South Africa. The 36,000 barrels/day operation has a crude oil equivalent of 45,000 barrels/day. Gas reserves from Mossel Bay’s main production blocks will be exhausted by 2010, but Petro SA said it would consolidate smaller pockets of gas reserves in the area – known as the South Coast Gas development to keep the plant operational. Commenting on prospects for GTL technology, De Meyer said: “GTL steps into the gap between current oil production and demand, particularly as competition for resources grows from Eastern countries and cash rich investors”. Anti-flaring legislation, laws aimed at stopping the practice of burning valuable gas reserves that sit atop oil deposits, was also providing a useful market for GTL, De Meyer said. Petro SA was also bidding in joint venture with BHP Billiton and Norway’s Statoil, against a consortium consisting of Sasol and Chevron Corp., which also owns GTL technology, for construction of a $5bn GTL plant on Algeria’s coast. Shell is bidding on its own for the contract. “Sasol appears to be back in the hunt for the Algerian plant,” said De Meyer who was commenting on reports that the New York listed firm had backed out of the bidding process. The Algerian GTL plant will liberate the country’s Tinrhert gas field.

To: Dennis Roth who wrote (332)	7/13/2006 7:29:06 AM
From: Dennis Roth	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1740

PetroSA hopes to treble income using expertise on fuel from gas Mathabo le Roux Posted to the web on: 13 July 2006 businessday.co.za Trade and Industry Correspondent PETROSA said yesterday that its gas commercialisation plans could see the state agency increasing revenues and profits threefold over the next five years. PetroSA is following in the footsteps of its much larger counterpart, Sasol, by setting up partnerships in other parts of the world with a view to establishing commercial gas-to-liquids plants for the production of fuel that is seen as a cheaper and cleaner alternative to oil. Apart from the financial upside for the state-owned enterprise, the expansion and commercialisation of its gas-to-liquids operations holds huge promise for the country’s balance of payments. SA currently spends about 15% of its total import bill on oil. If PetroSA increased its production it could constitute a considerable saving in foreign exchange outflows, said chief financial officer Nkosemnthu Nika. The gas-to-liquids expansion plans are in line with government policy to diversify its energy sources. Indications are the startup of the first large-scale gas-to-liquids plant could be as early as 2010. The commercialisation plans kicked off with a technology development programme in 2001. The initiative is related to low-temperature Fischer Tröpsch technology, which is a joint venture between PetroSA, Statoil and Swiss company Lurgi. A semicommercial plant was built in Mossel Bay, which proved successful. This will form the basis of future applications of the technology in large-scale gas-to-liquids projects. PetroSA is pursuing an aggressive growth strategy to remain sustainable. Its aim is to increase production output to 65 000 barrels a day by 2010. Current operations have gas feedstocks that will last only until 2008. The company has, however, undertaken the South Coast gas development project at a cost of $448,5m, which would secure feedstock until 2013. The project was on schedule, with May as the target for the first gas to reach the refinery, CE Sipho Mkhize said. PetroSA is pursuing a number of foreign opportunities for commercial gas-to-liquids developments. Of these, undertakings in Algeria and Egypt were the most advanced, with an announcement on a $4bn plant in Algeria expected between September and November, said the GM of the company’s gas-to-liquids refinery, Robert Nohamba. PetroSA would have a 25% stake in the project. “PetroSA is on the brink of a breakthrough. If we can clinch this it could have a huge potential upside for the country,” he said. In Egypt, prefeasibility studies on a prospective gas-to-liquids plant would commence next year, Nohamba said. Apart from prospects in Algeria and Egypt, PetroSA is exploring opportunities with countries in the Middle East, South America and Australia. It already has a stake in a proposed fuel-grade methanol project in Qatar, in line with the objective to commercialise its gas-to-liquids know-how. In the company’s corporate strategic plan, it is envisaged that the realisation of its gas commercialisation plans would see PetroSA trebling revenues to about R20bn over the next five years, from the current R6,5bn. Sasol’s groundbreaking gas-to-liquids plant in Qatar would be the first large-scale plant to produce liquid fuel from gas when production starts next month. Until then PetroSA still rules the roost with its Mossel Bay plant, once regarded as a white elephant, but which remains the largest of only three gas-to-liquids plants in the world.

To: Dennis Roth who wrote (332)	6/15/2007 10:55:11 AM
From: Dennis Roth	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1740

PetroSA's Mossel Bay refinery operating at 50% capacity GAS-TO-LIQUIDS By: Mariaan Olivier Published: 15 Jun 07 - 14:39 engineeringnews.co.za The State-owned petroleum, oil and gas company, PetroSA, said on Friday that it had begun “urgent repairs” to its underwater gas pipeline after an ice blockage limited the flow of gas to its gas-to-liquids refinery at Mossel Bay. The refinery, which accounts for about 7% of the country’s fuel production, was now operating at 50% capacity. “The matter is receiving our urgent attention but we cannot say exactly when the problem will be resolved,” vice president for new ventures midstream Jorn Falbe said in a statement. He added that the company’s efforts to access the undersea pipeline were affected by the weather conditions, which was making the situation unsafe for divers. Falbe said that discussions were taking place with the oil industry to ensure the envisaged shortfall was addressed.

To: Dennis Roth who wrote (332)	10/8/2007 9:48:43 AM
From: Dennis Roth	Respond to of 1740

Five wells add four more years to PetroSA refinery October 8, 2007 busrep.co.za By INGI SALGADO Cape Town - Gas has started flowing from five wells drilled off the southern Cape coast that will extend the life of state oil and gas group PetroSA's gas-to-liquids (GTL) refinery in Mossel Bay by four more years. The plant would have ceased operating next year without this new gas source, which came at a development cost to the parastatal of R3.2 billion. The Mossel Bay plant produces about 7 percent of the country's fuel. South Africa's other synthetic fuel producer, Sasol, manufactures almost a third of the country's fuel, mainly from coal. PetroSA chief executive Sipho Mkhize said on Friday the company was in the process of re-examining upstream opportunities in the region, and should be in a position to further extend its gas reserves in southern Africa until about 2018 or 2020. The parastatal has stakes in gas exploration ventures off the Mozambican coast as well as off the west coast of South Africa. There is further upside around PetroSA's FA platform off the southern Cape coast, where a good deal of infrastructure is already in place. The company is involved in talks with the owners of the Kudu gas field off Namibia about securing gas supplies there. However, Mkhize said several outstanding pricing issues had to be resolved first. Other options include exploring the importation of gas, either in the form of liquefied natural gas or compressed natural gas, and the viability of piping coal-bed methane - found in gas seams - from inland coal fields. Mkhize pointed out that the group's US partner, Pioneer Natural Resources, was expert in this technology. Two years ago, Pioneer and PetroSA jointly started drilling the wells in the South Coast Gas project that have extended the life of the GTL refinery. Mkhize said PetroSA would make a presentation to the national treasury this month on the options and costs of securing gas feedstock to enable it to expand production. The treasury recently scrapped proposals to impose a windfall tax on producers of synthetic fuel, in exchange for a commitment to invest a "significant share" of their profits into expanding production. Synthetic fuel is relatively cheap to produce in the current climate of high oil prices. Increased local production would ease pressure on the balance of payments, as it would reduce the need for crude oil imports for refining. Sasol has embarked on a prefeasibility study into Project Mafutha, a proposed coal-to-liquids plant that could produce 80 000 barrels of fuel a day.

To: Dennis Roth who wrote (332)	12/20/2008 6:52:56 AM
From: Dennis Roth	Respond to of 1740

PetroSA freezes coal-to-liquids project 'for number of years' engineeringnews.co.za By: Chanel Pringle 11 Dec 08 South Africa's national oil and gas company (NOC), PetroSA, has placed its coal-to-liquids (CTL) project on hold, CEO Sipho Mkhize said on Thursday. The project has been delayed to allow time further to investigate issues such as water availability, carbon sequestration and other infrastructure requirements, he said in a statement. The 80 000-bl/d CTL plant was expected to start contributing to South Africa's energy supply pool by about 2020. However, PetroSA acting head of corporate communications Thabo Mabaso told Engineering News Online that the project could possibly only be restarted "a number of years" down the line. Minister of Minerals and Energy, Buyelwa Sonjica, reported earlier this year, that the plant could be built in the Waterberg or Springbok Flats region, in Limpopo province. PetroSA's other refining project, a 400 000-bl/d crude oil refinery, at Coega, in the Eastern Cape, was on track, after having finally awarded the contract for an engineering partner on Monday. The Eastern Cape refinery was pursued in response to the country's Energy Master Plan, which would improve the security of energy supply in South Africa. PetroSA had to provide at least 30% of the country's crude oil needs by 2020, prompting it to develop its Vision 2020 growth strategy. Meanwhile, PetroSA expected the sustainability of its Mossel Bay refinery to remain challenging in the short-to-medium term, as the indigenous reserves were being depleted. The NOC had implemented a number of initiatives to deal with this. This included a drilling and exploration campaign, while PetroSA was also considering buying gas from other sources. SUSTAINABLE GROWTH Amidst the global financial crisis, PetroSA would continue to target sustainable growth, CFO Nkosemntu Nika asserted. "The world is facing a debilitating financial crisis that will surely impact on South Africa. Despite this crisis, PetroSA will, however, continue the drive for sustainable growth and will pursue with vigour the quest to entrench itself as a fully-integrated, globally competitive NOC," Nika said. PetroSA reported a record R11-billion in revenue in the 2007/8 financial year. This was an increase of 23% on the R8,9-billion achieved the year before. The company also had posted a R1,83-billion net profit for the year, although this was down 32,6%, compared with the year before. The Central Energy Fund, of which PetroSA was an operating subsidiary, in October, reported that this was mainly owing to the increased cost of feedstock purchases as a result of high oil prices and a weaker rand.