Sasol One Step Closer to Huge U.S. Gas-To-Liquids Plant

Fox Business News ^ | 2012 | Ben Lefebvre

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Moving a low to medium rank fuel into a high rank fuel makes loads of sense. Just a coal beings in big, stationary power plants.

But upgrading coal to motor fuel, the producer should expect to sell it for a higher price...

[sitetest]

Dear thackney,

The article says that the plant will use about 1 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas. In terms of energy equivalence, that appears to be around 7 million gallons of diesel per day, if my calculations are correct.

However, I imagine that some of the natural gas will be “lost” in the process. Do you have some idea of how much diesel the plant will be able to produce from the reported input of 1 billion cubic feet per day?

Thanks,

sitetest

[jjotto]

I don’t have latest data, but a few years ago the expected efficiency for these kinds of processes was 60-70%.

[thackney]

But upgrading coal to motor fuel, the producer should expect to sell it for a higher price...

Sure, just like electricity sells for more per BTU (kWH) than coal does.

[taildragger]

That was an oil refinery. It is not capable of turning natural gas into jet fuel. It takes in crude oil for making petroleum products. The equipment is not capable of switching from one to another.

Agreed, and thanks for your expertise and always talking us down from the ledge Thackney :-) !

What Ididn't say is what is stoping them or someone else from getting a refinery and retrofiting it, or scrapping it for a new plant because it is already a brown-field if you will for a GTL?

[thackney]

I don’t know the input/output ratio for energy. I would not be surprised to see 50% losses, but I could easily be off by 50%.

More info at:

http://www.sasol.com/sasol_internet/downloads/SASOL_GTL_Brochure_1332426778928.pdf

[thackney]

I think there would be little of use other than the tank farm.

I suspect it would be cheaper to build a new facility to converting. The process has little to be in common.

Think of converting a cheese factory to run on grape juice instead of milk. I realize that in nonsense, but I am trying to emphasis they are not convertable.

[usconservative]

This one plant is not going to produce enough to make any significant change in a large volume globally priced commodity.

It doesn't have to, and in fact I'd argue the plant wouldn't be being built IF it did have the capability to affect prices.

If there was not a significant difference in cost for the feedstock to the product, the $19 Billion plant would not get built.

DING, DING, DING! Winner, winner Chicken Dinner!! Precisely what I was thinking also. That's exactly why this plant is being built where it is.

The wholesale price in Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel varies little between places like Europe, South America and North America.

No doubt taxes play a substantial role in the price difference. The missing component in the price here is the cost of converting one's currency to the Dollar which is used to pay for fuel commodities. That affects the price also, in some cases significantly.

[Gandalf_The_Gray]

Sasol is also going ahead with the construction of an ethane cracker that will cost between $5 billion and $7 billion and will have an annual production of 1.5 million tons of ethylene.

Just a couple of tweeks and you can be synthesizing ethanol directly from ethylene and steam (tap water). No corn, no fermenting, no distillation, and Archer Daniels Midland can kiss there Federal subsidy bye bye.

I've been pushing for liquid hydrocarbon synthesizes since crude began it's climb to the stratosphere. WWII Germany made all it's diesel fuel and high octane aviation gas from coal. We have even more coal reserves (600 years) than natural gas. It's about time we started an energy program that makes us independent of imported crude. The Arabs can go back to racing camels and buggering goats.

Regards,
GtG