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Sasol, China talk synthetic fuel
At least the Chinese get it. Sasol, the worldâs largest producer of synthetic fuels from coal, was in talks with the Shenhua Group, Chinaâs largest coal mining company, about building a plant there, the company said yesterday. Sasolâs spokesperson Johann van Rheede confirmed that the two companies were "in exploratory talks" but these were still at a very early stage and feasibility studies had not even been done yet. Wen Xinsheng, the deputy general manager with Beijing-based Shenhuaâs coal-to-oil unit, said Shenhua was interested in setting up a 30 billion yuan plant with Sasol to convert coal to petrol and diesel. The first phase of the plant was projected to have a capacity of 3 million tons of motor fuel a year, Wen said. China is the worldâs largest coal miner and consumer, and has encouraged experiments in turning it to oil in an effort to help reduce its reliance on imported fuel from the Middle East. Shenhua planned to increase the investment to 100 billion yuan by 2020, by which time the project would have annual capacity of 10 million tons of motor fuel, said Wen. Shenhua would increase investment to 300 billion yuan thereafter, Wen said. He said no decision had been made on financing the project. Another report says the cost is USD10 per barrel which is inline with other sources I have seen and about the same as Synoil from the Alberta oilsands. Yes folks you can have unlimited supplies of oil at ten dollars a barrel. So why isnât it happening. The problem is not technology. The South Africans have been doing this for over 20 years. The problem is risk. Combined with NIMBY. These plants cost billions to tens of billions of dollars and are big and dirty. The government has to take on the risk by commiting to buy synthetic oil on long term contracts at fixed prices. Either oil prices stay high and the government makes a truly massive profit, or oil prices fall dramatically, and the government looses a lot of money, but you are no longer dependent on ME oil. BTW I have been going on about this for years. Posted by: Phil B 2004-04-11 |
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