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Technology Stocks : OILS - OTCBB: bringing stranded natural gas to market -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: IPOJunkie who wrote (15)	6/12/1998 12:07:00 AM
From: John M	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 275

Bruno and IPO, One thing to remember about all of these GTL processes is that in the end all of them produce more greenhouse gases!! If I was an environmental engineer I would puke when they say they want to eliminate greenhouse gases. Here is why. Stranded natural gas reserves are not being produced now. If they are produced and converted into diesel, that is more diesel for the worlds trucks to burn. When the diesel is burned it produces CO2 the worlds favorite greenhouse gas. All combustion of carbon based fuels produce greenhouse gases. Their SYGEN process sounds interesting and worth investigating. This process is some sort of gasifier to make syngas (H2 and CO) from methane CH4. RNTK does not have a gasifier that is proprietary (TX does though for refinery bottoms and hence the Agreement). CO2 in the inlet methane up to 25% either passes through the system and is not used but vented to atmosphere or they have some special patented method in the Syngen process for converting the CO2 to CO. I will investigate. Lets assume they can convert CO2 to CO and add some hydrogen so that the 2:1 H2/CO ratio is established for FT for now. Cobalt FT system sounds the same as Shell, Exxon or SASOL with some different pixie dust added into the catalyst so that they could get a patent. Could be OK - I've learned that getting a colbalt catalyst patent in the US is very difficult because of Exxon's patent - maybe that is why they are staying in Russia. RNTK's process is the FT process with an iron based catalyst. Iron based catalysts can convert syngas streams with H2:CO ratios from 0.8 :1 to 2:1. Cobalt is only able to convert syngas streams with 2:1 ratio. The reason for this is because only one reaction is promoted by cobalt . CO + 2H2 -> CxH(2x+2) . Need 2:1 ratio or a lot of extra unreacted molecules left. Iron promotes two reactions - CO + H2 ->CxH(2x+2) + CO2 + H2O, then water shift reaction H2O + CO2 -> H2 + CO + unreacted stuff. Don't feel like balancing equations tonite please excuse unbalanced equations. Long story short, iron catalyst can generate additional hydrogen during FT reaction to improve ratio from 0.8:1 up to 2:1 so that long chain hydrocarbons can be made. Also a lot of olefins in iron reaction requiring hydrotreating later though. Anyway, sulfur cannot be handled in an iron based catalyst system without spending the catalyst very quickly because iron sulfide is formed and the catalyst must be disposed of. RNTK continuously replaces the catalyst in their FT reactor (also a continuos disposal of spent catalyst). They are working on a way to minimize the spent catalyst disposal problem according to Benman. Very long story but either catalyst system requires impurity removal before the FT reactor. Cobalt costs more to replace so you don't want to ruin it with sulfur. Iron is replaced all the time anyway and is cheaper. Don't forget, eventually greenhouse gases are produced and sent into the atmosphere no matter what these guys say. JCM