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

To: Dennis Roth who wrote (1327)	4/10/2008 9:07:10 AM
From: Dennis Roth	Respond to of 1740

ExxonMobil project to convert ‘waste to wealth’ 08 April, 2008 12:00:00 OLUSOLA BELLO & EJIOFOR ALIKE businessdayonline.com Exxon-Mobil’s attempt at building a gas-to-liquid plant in the country is a project that will convert “waste to wealth,” according to experts. This follows President Umaru Yar’Adua’s directive to Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to grant approval to the oil firm to start the process of building a gas-to-liquid (GTL) plant in the country. Okwudili Obi, managing director of Gas Distribution Services Limited said gas-to-liquid plants convert natural gas, which otherwise would be flared, from its gaseous condition to liquid. According to him, this liquid is broken down to carbon monoxide and oxygen and re-combined to form low-sulphur diesel, or even crude oil. Products from the plant can be used by existing engines, including vehicles without the need to reconfigure the engines. The company boss disclosed that this process provided the energy need of apartheid South Africa, when the country was cut off from energy supply from the rest of the world. He said that the country extracted gas from coal and broke it down into other components, which were re-combined to produce crude oil for the country’s refineries. Chevron had embarked on a similar project in the country with the collaboration of Sasol of South Africa. A Chevron source said that the company’s $1.3 billion (N162.5 billion) Escravos-gas-to-liquid (EGTL) plant, which it co-jointly owned with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), would be completed on schedule by 2009. According to him, the project will have the double effect of reducing gas flare and producing low-sulfur diesel fuels for international markets. The company has sponsored 200 Nigerians who will run the plant on a 26-month education and training course at Sasol plants in Sasolburg and Secunda, South Africa. Obi had earlier said that GTL will provide high-calibre employment to Nigerians, who will operate the plants. Austin Avuru, managing director of Platform Petroleum Limited, said although the establishment of GTL industry in the country is good, it does not create much jobs but has a high propensity of multipliers effects which by extension will impact on a good number of people. He said that contractors and suppliers would have jobs to do, adding that they would also employ different levels of skilled labour which would create jobs. If ExxonMobil establishes a GTL plant in Nigeria it would be the second multinational oil company that is investing seriously in the business. The first was Chevron Nigeria which in conjunction with Sasol of South Africa is undertaking a gas to liquid project at its operational base in the Niger Delta. The expansion of the industry is based on favourable market conditions in addition to advances in technology. High oil and natural gas prices, declining capital investment costs, and improvements in technology that allow large scale production facilities are important factors in the industry’s expansion. The GTL industry offers an attractive choice to nations with economically stranded natural gas reserves because it allows them to diversify in the use of their resources. Diversification would allow the country to gain higher rates of return than through a singular investment strategy.

To: Dennis Roth who wrote (1327)	6/24/2008 7:23:05 AM
From: Dennis Roth	Respond to of 1740

Nigeria banks loan $220 mln to finish Mobil GTL plant Mon Jun 23, 2008 11:29am EDT reuters.com By Camillus Eboh ABUJA, June 23 (Reuters) - Nigeria's state oil firm NNPC said on Monday it had signed a $220 million financing deal with a group of Nigerian banks to help complete a natural gas to liquid joint venture with the local arm of Exxon Mobil (XOM.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz). Nigeria has said it hopes that the NGL II gas-to-liquid project -- 51 percent owned by Exxon subsidiary Mobil Producing Nigeria (MPN) and 49 percent held by NNPC -- will help reduce its dependence on imported fuel. The Nigerian banks would contribute the $220 million loan, repayable after 25 years, to finance the final segment of the project, which was first started in 2004 and is expected to produce 40,000 barrels per day, NNPC said in a statement. It said the deal was signed in London at the weekend. "The project financing plan is in line with government aspiration to end gas flaring and monetise gas," NNPC executive director for exploration and production, Chris Ogiewonyi, said. Despite being the world's eighth-biggest oil exporter, Nigeria's four state-owned refineries have frequent production problems, largely due to mismanagement and vandalism, saddling the country with an annual fuel import bill of some $4 billion. NNPC signed a $1.275 billion financing deal in 2004 for the construction of extraction platforms, pipelines and onshore facilities to boost the estimated production lifetime of existing operations at the joint venture. At the time, officials said construction work would likely be completed in 2007, with a startup date of 2008. Exxon Mobil has said the project is still in the planning stages and has given no details of a timeframe. NNPC said the U.S. government's Overseas Private Investment Corporation and investment bank Credit Suisse (CSGN.VX: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) First Boston had contributed $575 million to the project back in 2004. But it said the latest deal was a "landmark achievement" because it was the first project financing to be fully sponsored by Nigerian banks. (Writing by Nick Tattersall; editing by James Jukwey) © Thomson Reuters 2008 All rights reserved