South African energy group Sasol on Thursday opened a 20 million euro cobalt catalyst plant in the Netherlands it said would supply its proposed Gas-to-Liquid (GTL) operations.
The plant, with a production capacity of 500 tons of catalyst per year, is a partnership with US-based Engelhard Corp, a speciality catalyst producer.
Under the agreement, Engelhard will operate and manage the plant at De Meern in the Netherlands and supply Sasol’s GTL ventures in Qatar and Nigeria, which are scheduled for production in 2005 and 2006 respectively.
The metal cobalt catalyst is used in Sasol’s slurry phase reactors, part of a three-step process which converts natural gas into environmentally friendly synthetic fuels — with virtually no sulphur content.
”Gas to liquids is really a growth industry, clearly an emerging industry and a very exciting one for Sasol,” Sasol Executive Director Pat Davies told reporters. ”Key to that is the successful production of catalysts.”
Davies said the proposed GTL plants in Nigeria and Qatar — each with a 34 000 barrels-per-day capacity — would need 600-800 tonnes of catalyst at the start-up for some three years.
Sasol is in a joint venture with state-owned Qatar Petroleum to set up an $800-million GTL plant at the Ras Laffan Industrial City.
In Nigeria, SasolChevron Holdings Ltd, a joint venture with ChevronTexaco and partners Nigerian National Petroleum Corp (NNPC) and Chevron Nigeria, are developing a $1,3-billion GTL plant.
The oil-from-coal producer estimates its GTL ventures will be generating profits of $1-billion per year in 10 years.
Davies said they hoped to make an announcement on GTL expansion in Australia by the end of 2002 and that they were exploring possibilities in Iran and South America.
Sasol was set up in the 1950’s to exploit South Africa’s abundant coal reserves to shield the country from the mid-1970’s oil crisis and an embargo against the then apartheid government. – Reuters