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

To: Dennis Roth who wrote (1180)	3/10/2008 7:44:54 AM
From: Dennis Roth	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1740

RIL to ink JV with Coal India 10 Mar 2008, 0000 hrs IST,Sanjay Dutta,TNN timesofindia.indiatimes.com NEW DELHI: Mukesh Ambani-controlled Reliance Industries Ltd, which made the country’s biggest gas find in 2002 and is setting up the world’s largest single-location refining complex at Jamnagar in Gujarat, is eyeing a JV with state-owned monopoly Coal India Ltd for its proposed coal-to-liquid project for synthesising 80,000 barrels a day of oil from black diamond. Sources said the top brass of the two sides have already held a round of talks to flag the areas of co-operation towards this end. Reliance has already written to the government, asking for coal acreages that can supply approximately 30 million tonnes a year. Executives of the two firms were not immediately available for comments. Reliance has sought mines with a total reserve of 1,500 million tonnes under the operational area of Mahanadi Coalfields that are mostly open-cast mines. Production cost in open-cast system is lower than underground mining. This offsets the higher cost of cleaning inferior Indian coal to levels of 32% ash content for use in this project. The company sees the coal-to-liquid project as an area where it can leverage its expertise and leadership position in the petrochemicals business in India. A back-of-envelope calculation suggests an investment of over $5 billion in a project of this size. Coal ministry officials said Reliance is talking to leading technology-providers for the project, including Sasol of South Africa, Headwaters and KBL. The joint venture plan with Coal India is the second public-private proposal for coal-to-liquid projects. State refiner-marketer IndianOil Corporation had last month requested external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee to flag to his South African counterpart a possible partnership in the tieup the Tata Group has with Sasol for a similar project. The Tata-Sasol combine has also sought access to 30 million tonnes of black diamond a year for producing 3 million barrels of oil and 1,500 mw of power from a similar project it proposes to set up in joint venture with Sasol. The Tata Group has an understanding with Sasol, the world’s largest producer of oil from coal, and is reported to be willing to pump in up to $6 billion in the project. The rush for coal-to-liquid projects comes in the wake of the new policy wherein projects for producing gas or oil from coal have been given the status of end-use. This makes firms interested in setting up such projects to apply for coalmines for captive mining.

To: Dennis Roth who wrote (1180)	5/14/2008 8:48:01 AM
From: Dennis Roth	Respond to of 1740

Gassification of coal allowed, RIL to gain Shaleen Agrawal Wednesday, May 14, 2008 03:44 IST dnaindia.com Company has sought a coal block in Assam for move NEW DELHI: The government has allowed underground gassification of coal to be considered as one of the valid end uses for the purpose of allocating captive coal blocks to corporations, sources familiar with the situation told DNA Money. The move, said to have been cleared last week, is expected to spell significant gains for Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), as the country’s biggest company by market capitalisation had earlier evinced interest in projects for gassification of underground coal. RIL plans to sell the gas thus obtained to third-party users such as fertiliser, chemicals, petrochemicals and power generation companies. Indian law currently provides for allotment of captive coal blocks only to power generation units, iron and steel companies, coal washeries and cement companies for mining and using it in the production process. But minister of state for coal, Santosh Bagrodia, said no final decision has been taken yet. “Allowing coal gasification as one of the end-uses to allocate captive coal mines is still under consideration. It is premature to talk about it at this point of time,” Bagrodia said. According to him, there is hardly any company in the world with the technical expertise to convert underground coal into gas. RIL has recently applied to the coal ministry for allocation of a coal block in Assam for the purpose of gassification. State-owned explorer ONGC is the only company to have undertaken underground coal gassification projects in the country through a tie-up with Coal India Ltd, Neyveli Lignite Corp and Singareni Coalfields. An RIL spokesperson said the company intends to go ahead with its coal gasification plans provided it secures coal mines. “Indian coal has very high ash content and one is not sure whether the technologies available globally would work here as well,” he said. The company would look to source right technology from a foreign company for plans, he said, declining to give further details.

To: Dennis Roth who wrote (1180)	6/24/2008 7:35:31 AM
From: Dennis Roth	Respond to of 1740

R-Adag set to enter coal-to-liquid sector The move could open up another front in the ongoing battle between Anil Ambani’s R-Adag and Reliance Industries Ltd controlled by Mukesh Ambani livemint.com Utpal Bhaskar New Delhi The Reliance-Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, or R-Adag, controlled by Anil Ambani, is looking to enter the coal-to-liquid, or CTL business, a move that could likely open up another front in the ongoing battle between it and Reliance Industries Ltd, or RIL, controlled by Mukesh Ambani, which has already announced its entry into the business. The estranged brothers have sparred since a 2006 settlement that carved up the Reliance group between the two with the flashpoints usually involving non-compete agreements or first right of refusals. R-Adag firm Reliance Communications Ltd and RIL are currently engaged in a battle over the former’s merger-in-the-making with South Africa’s MTN Group Ltd. CTL involves the conversion of coal into liquid fuels such as diesel and petrol, a process that one analyst said has become economically viable with crude prices soaring to historic highs. R-Adag has shortlisted an Australian firm and an American one as technology partners and could bid for three CTL blocks in Orissa said an R-Adag spokesperson. He declined to name the companies. RIL is in the fray for the same blocks as is Tata-Sasol. When contacted over phone, an RIL spokesperson said: “Since these are complex legal issues, I will need at least a day to respond to this.” He did not respond to queries emailed to him. Mint couldn’t independently ascertain whether R-Adag’s CTL play will violate any non-compete agreement with RIL. An analyst who did not wish to be identified said both had entered the coal bed methane business after the settlement, indicating that there was no non-compete agreement in certain areas. The Orissa blocks are Bankhui, Sakhigopal B and Alaknanda in Talcher district and can support production of 3.5 million tonnes of oil and petroleum products. R-Adag has to partner with a technology provider without which it will not be eligible to bid for the blocks according to criteria laid down by the coal ministry. The other eligibility condition is for the bidder to have a minimum net worth (equity and reserves) of Rs4,000 crore. The total cost of the project is estimated at $8 billion (Rs34,400 crore). With crude oil prices touching around $140 a barrel, there has been a resurgence of interest in proven technologies such as CTL that were previously considered expensive. India’s Integrated Energy Policy has said CTL technology is one of the options that can improve energy security in the country. Rohit Nagaraj, an analyst at Angel Broking Ltd, said that the “threshold for production from CTL blocks is around $80 per barrel. If the crude oil prices remain above this level, then CTL is economically feasible”. Nagaraj added that he wasn’t sure how R-Adag’s entry into the business would affect the non-compete agreement with RIL but added that “both RIL and R-Adag have coal bed methane blocks.” If R-Adag manages to get the CTL blocks and is then successful in converting coal to liquid fuel, it will have to find a buyer for the end products.

To: Dennis Roth who wrote (1180)	12/21/2008 8:59:51 AM
From: Dennis Roth	Respond to of 1740

RIL gets US govt's Rs 2.8 crore grant for liquid fuel project 21 Dec 2008, 1449 hrs IST, PTI economictimes.indiatimes.com WASHINGTON: India's top corporate Reliance Industries, led by the country's richest person Mukesh Ambani, has received a grant of 600,000 dollars (less than Rs 3 crore) for its proposed coal-to-liquid fuel project. The domestic petrochemicals giant itself is contributing 391,305 dollars (less than Rs 2 crore) to fund the feasibility study for the project, while another US company Headwaters CTL LLC is also putting in 120,000 dollars. The grant has been provided by the US Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) and has been disclosed in the '2008 National Export Strategy' report from the US government's Trade Promotion Coordinating Committee (TPCC). "USTDA and the Department of Energy are supporting the US-India Energy Dialogue. The Dialogue promotes increased trade and investment in the energy sector by working with the public and private sectors to further identify areas of collaboration," the report said, while listing out seven funding activities approved by the USTDA this year, which includes the one for RIL. The grant to RIL is to "partially fund a feasibility study for a lignite/petroleum residue-to-synthetic liquid fuel project. The study will consider the application of advanced proprietary coal-to-liquids technology from Headwaters CTL, LLC, a US firm based in Utah, with laboratories in New Jersey. "Reliance is contributing an additional 391,305 dollars and Headwaters an additional 120,000 dollars," TPCC said.