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To: Bearcatbob who wrote (157370)	9/20/2011 12:17:01 PM
From: KyrosL	2 Recommendations Respond to of 206085

One would think the natural gas front end of a Sasol facility would be a whole lot less costly than a coal based front end. I have always thought this was a good idea - but it never seems to happen. It requires huge investment and a large price advantage of natural gas over oil. It's a very risky investment, unless the price differential between NG and oil can be guaranteed for a long time. That's why a permanent high federal gasoline tax makes so much sense for this and other reasons -- broaden tax base, reduce gasoline consumption.

To: Bearcatbob who wrote (157370)	9/20/2011 1:30:36 PM
From: raybiese	7 Recommendations Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 206085

BBob: GTL Basic Issues: Gasification to syngas is very endothermic and occurs at high temperature. So partial combustion is used for heat. Air adds too much nitrogen so an oxygen plant is required. All catalytic 'molecular building' processes (e.g. Fischer Tropsch) are sensitive to impurities. So the syngas has to be cleaned rigorously. In FT, this means sometimes cleaning to ppb levels and this pretty much has to happen at low temperature. Nat gas is much cleaner than coal and this is a small plus for NG. The gas cleaning is a big chunk of cap & op cost. Heat exchange is needed to cool the syngas and generates steam for electricity and for use as a reactant. Then comes H2/CO ratio adjustment for the 'molecular building' section (a different issue for H-deficient coal & H-rich NG). Then comes the highly exothermic catalytic 'molecular building' at moderate temperature. Large heat releases can easily overheat catalysts so heat exchange, multi-staging and high recycle rates are often used. Gas cooling is used to generate steam again. All-in-all, not a very thermally integrated process. The heat exchange is expensive then add the cap & op cost of a steam driven electrical generation system. After all of this, the FT process is not specific to a specific product molecular weight & a range of product boiling points is produced requiring separation. So conventional fractionation & separation is still required. Plus FT 'wants' to produce 'waxes' or long chain hydrocarbons with low aromatic content (more akin to diesel than gasoline) requiring more refinery magic (e.g. gas oil or naphtha to gasoline). Add in a 'bonus' CO2 sequestration section to help get permitting & things can get quite nasty on a cap cost plus op cost basis. As such, only very cheap feedstock can be considered (e.g. NG in Qatar) or where crude & product import restrictions require it (e.g. Sasol for coal-to-liquid fuels in South Africa). It makes a lot of sense for stranded NG priced at <$0.50/mcf. Have a peek at the pics here: shell.com to see what you can get for $18-$19 billion to produce 140,000 bbl/d of GTL products & 120,000 BOE/d NGL's and ethane. This 'data point' should let you get a feel for process economics at world scale. More detail: dgmk.de Slide 32 has an 'arbitrary' cap cost/scale/technology progress graph with Pearl as a two train process. IMHO, it is far better to switch transport fuels than go goofy on GTL as a future strategy for the USA. There are better options. Ray

To: Bearcatbob who wrote (157370)	9/20/2011 4:04:40 PM
From: Dennis Roth	Respond to of 206085

>> Sasol gasified coal to syn gas to produce gasoline. << Actually Sasol gasifies coal to produce solvents and other chemicals. Most gasoline in South Africa is refined from crude oil. The yield of gasoline components from the coal fired high temperature Fischer-Tropsh process is too low to compete economically with crude oil. Sasol employs two different types of Fischer-Tropsh processes. A high temperature process using iron based catalysts fueled mostly with coal they call "Advanced Synthol" and a low temperature process using cobalt based catalysts and NG feedstock they call "Slurry Phase FT" The Synthol process is currently used only in South Africa mainly for chemical production. The Slurry Phase FT is in operation in South Africa and Qatar and under construction in Nigeria. the Slurry Phase FT process is tuned for maximum production of middle distillates, diesel, K-1, jet fuel, not gasoline. Their newest operational plant in Qatar called Oryx, produces mainly diesel, naphta, and LPG for sale. The GTL plants they have been pitching for Canada, Uzbekistan, and the USA would be clones of the Oryx plant and would produce mainly diesel, naphta, and LPG. Here is a Sasol presentation given from last April on their North America and GTL plans given before the recent announcements about Louisiana and Uzbekistan but the story should be much the for Louisiana and Uzbekistan. sasol.com >> I would love to know the economics of this process. << As for the economics, Sasol released their financial results for the year ended 30 June 2011 on the 12th, sasol.com You can poke around in there but I think you will find that now that they have gotten over some of the teething pains in getting the Qatar Oryx GTL plant up and running, it's becoming increasingly profitable. IMO, a successful GTL project requires at least three things. A supply of low cost NG that will last at least 20 years to justify the cost of the plant. A company that knows what its doing. A supportive, not hostile, government.