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

To: Dennis Roth who wrote (386)	9/21/2006 8:34:26 AM
From: Dennis Roth	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1740

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 ======== 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.

To: Dennis Roth who wrote (386)	2/8/2007 11:50:56 AM
From: Dennis Roth	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1740

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.

To: Dennis Roth who wrote (386)	9/15/2007 10:05:22 AM
From: Dennis Roth	Respond to of 1740

Monash plans to move in on Sasol's market September 12, 2007 busrep.co.za By Justin Brown Perth - Sasol faces competition in the coal-to-liquids (CTL) space from Monash Energy. Monash, the joint venture between Anglo American and Shell, is looking to build its first CTL plant in Australia as early as 2012. Jeff Cochrane, Monash Energy's deputy project director, said last week that the concept study for the proposed plant was likely to be completed this year. The plant was likely to produce 70 000 to 80 000 barrels of fuel a day. Cochrane said the cost of the plant had not been determined. Sasol operates the world's largest CTL facility, in Secunda, Mpumalanga. The facility produces 150 000 barrels of fuel a day. The petrochemicals group is also investigating the possibility of building CTL plants in China, India and the US. The company built a gas-to-liquids plant in Qatar and is looking at the possibility of building a similar plant in Australia. The Monash Energy's coal-to-liquid plant, to be developed by Shell, will require 25 million to 26 million tons of coal a year. Sasol's Secunda plant consumes more than 40 million tons a year. Monash Energy's operation will use brown coal, which has a higher moisture content than the black coal that Sasol uses. The burning of brown coal releases high levels of carbon dioxide. CTL plants are huge emitters of such pollutants. To alleviate this problem, Monash Energy is looking at introducing carbon capture and storage technology at all its future CTL plants. Carbon capture involves the isolation of carbon in pollutants and storing it in oil fields. Anglo and Shell have been in the joint venture since last year. Monash employs 16 people directly.

To: Dennis Roth who wrote (386)	2/26/2008 5:47:50 AM
From: Dennis Roth	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1740

Industry looks to gas, coal for transport fuel Nigel Wilson, Energy writer \| February 26, 2008 theaustralian.news.com.au A MOVE to develop a national agenda to create a multi-billion-dollar industry producing liquid transport fuels from coal and gas will be launched today by the Rudd Government. Resources Minister Martin Ferguson will use a conference in Brisbane to set the scene for gas and coal offsetting Australia's huge and growing oil import bill. Australia last year spent $7.5 billion on energy imports, more than it gained from selling oil, gas and coal overseas. The country has only about eight years of oil at current rates of extraction but more than 100 years of gas and about 600 years of coal. Mr Ferguson will tell delegates to the third annual coal-to-liquids and gas-to-liquids conference in Brisbane that by 2015 Australia will be producing about 20 per cent of its transport fuels and the bill from oil and condensate will have blown up, including the trade deficit by $27 billion. The gas and coal to liquids agenda will follow on from Labor's National Energy Security Assessment now under way. The new resources policy supremo argues that little has been done for the past seven years when a GTL taskforce wasappointed by then Resources minister Nick Minchin. This concluded that a GTL industry would be of national significance, potentially underwriting offshore gas supply infrastructure as well as major new domestic gas pipelines. The taskforce said GTL could increase domestic gas competition and boost gas exploration. Mr Ferguson said the new agenda was designed to identify industry barriers and ways to overcome them and to develop a policy framework to build a sustainable industry for the future. Mr Ferguson sees a liquids industry coming from natural gas or from coal as complementing the export LNG industry. Both LNG and GTL require large gas volumes and could produce infrastructure investment where smaller projects could not. The minister argues that Australia could become a valued supplier of GTL diesel as a clean transport fuel in the same regional markets as LNG. Earlier this month, Linc Energy announced it was about to commission a fullscale plant producing five barrels a day of ultra-clean diesel using feed from its underground coal gasification project at Chinchilla in Queensland. The federal Resources and Energy Department is working with Monash Energy, a joint venture of Shell and Anglo Coal, on a potential CTL project in the Latrobe Valley, while Chevron in partnership with South Africa's SASOL has proposed a GTL development based on the Wheatstone gas reservoir off Western Australia.

To: Dennis Roth who wrote (386)	4/8/2008 9:25:21 AM
From: Dennis Roth	Respond to of 1740

Exxon airs doubts on Bass Strait carbon plan business.theage.com.au * Barry FitzGerald, Perth * April 8, 2008 * EXXON Mobil has raised fresh concerns over Federal Government plans to establish a world-first regulated carbon capture and storage system in Australia. The oil giant operates the Bass Strait oil and gas fields, which have been targeted as eventual homes for the storage of greenhouse gases from the planned $5 billion Monash Energy coal-to-liquids project in the Latrobe Valley, a joint venture between Shell and Anglo American. The Federal Government has been looking to clear the way for carbon storage in Bass Strait and other regions by making amendments to the Offshore Petroleum Act (2006). Resources and Energy Minister Martin Ferguson told the oil conference in Perth he hoped the amendments would be considered by Parliament later this year. The industry has yet to see the planned amendments and Exxon Mobil is nervous about what is on the way. It said that the issue of dual licences (oil/gas production and carbon storage) over the same reservoirs could "pose a significant risk to the integrity and production from fields like Bass Strait". "We remain cautious around any regulatory framework that allows carbon dioxide injection into or near operational oil and gas fields," Exxon Mobil said. Mr Ferguson acknowledged industry fears over the amendments. But he said the rights of existing petroleum titleholders would be protected.

To: Dennis Roth who wrote (386)	12/2/2008 4:34:59 AM
From: Dennis Roth	Respond to of 1740

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 Click here to go to Dow Jones NewsPlus, a web front page of today's most important business and market news, analysis and commentary: djnewsplus.com. You can use this link on the day this article is published and the following day. (END) Dow Jones Newswires 12-01-08 2127ET Copyright (c) 2008 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.