Eight coal-to-oil projects in pipeline
By Wang Ying (China Daily)
Updated: 2006-06-16 08:57
China's biggest coal producer, Shenhua Group, plans to convert coal into 30
million tons of oil by the year 2020 in four northern provinces.
Three of
eight projects planned will be completed by 2010, Zhang Yuzhuo, in charge of
Shenhua's coal liquefaction business, told an energy forum hosted by the China
Energy Research Society in Beijing yesterday.
The first three plants are
expected to have a total capacity of 4 million tons a year, said
Zhang.
"We aim to produce 30 million tons a year by 2020," the company
executive said.
The eight plants will be built in Shaanxi, and the autonomous
regions of Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang Uygur and Ningxia Hui.
The
State-owned energy conglomerate plans to partner with foreign companies, such as
Royal Dutch Shell and Sasol, based in South Africa, over technology
transfers.
"We have almost finalized talks with South Africa and will
possibly sign a deal with them sometime next week," Zhang said, declining to
give details of the accord.
China's abundant coal reserves, surging oil
demand and soaring world oil prices suggest good prospects for the
coal-to-liquids (CTL) technology.
This can turn coal into oil and
chemical products such as diesel, gasoline and naphtha, a raw material for
producing other petrochemicals, Zhang said.
China is expected to use 115
million tons of gasoline and diesel by 2010, a figure expected to reach 216
million tons by 2020, Zhang said.
Building CTL facilities with a capacity
of 10,000 tons a year will cost about 100 million yuan (US$12.5 million), at
least seven times the spending to build a oil refinery or other petrochemical
complexes, Zhang said.
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