In a long note there will be content and typographical errors, but there are plenty of links to the original sources.
A reader alerted me to this story. Several links.
We start with this one: Nacero to build a $6 billion "gas to gasoline" plant in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania.
For those of us in North Dakota, I had to look it up: northeast Pennsyvania, the largest city is Wilkes-Barre. I had forgotten all about this but years ago when our older daughter's family was moving from South Carolina to Boston, to avoid the Washington-Baltimore corridor, we swung to the west, traveling north on I-81, and staying overnight in the Wilkes-Barre area on the last leg to Boston. Wow, what a beautiful area of the country. There just is not enough time in one's life to enjoy everything this wonderful country has to offer.
But I digress.
Back to Houston-based Nacero, Inc. Data points:
- site of a former coal mine;
- $6 billion project;
- 3,500 construction jobs;
- 450 permanent high-tech jobs paying $85,000 / year
- methane to zero sulfure, 100% domestic, low- and net zero-carbon gasoline in existing ICEs without modification;
And, then look at this: Nacero will also build, what appears to be an identical Pennsylvania unit near Odessa, TX.
- announced April 22, 2021
- $6.5 - $7.5 billion Penwell GTG (see Pennsylvania story above)
- Penwell, Ector County, TX: Penwell is seventeen miles southeast of Odessa
- would be the first in the US to produce gasoline from natural gas, as well as the first in the world to incorporate CCS;
Nacero has let a contract to Haldor Topsoe AS to license the necessary technology to utilize more than just natural gas for its Penwell/Odessa project. Data points:
- contractor: Haldor Topsoe AS
- GTG (gas-to-gasoline)
- Topsoe Improved Gasoline Synthesis (Tigas) GTG technology
- will use a feedstock of low-cost natural gasoline, biomethane captured from farms and landfills, and mitigated flared natural gas from the Permian basin to produce 100,000 b/d of finished gasoline;
- that finished gasoline component will be ready for blending to US commercial grades
- much more at the link
More on Topsoe's TIGAS technology: link here.
Nacero has done this before: proven results in an identical unit of scale operating since 2019 at state-owned Turkmengaz's GTG complex at Ovadan-Depe near Ashgabad, Turkmenistan.
Other links:
- Motortrend, September 8, 2021, with graphics.
- Advanced Biofuels USA, June 1, 2021.
- Methane-to-Methanol, University of Michigan ties in with ARPA-E. Project term, January, 2014 - March, 2017. Also, Penn State, same project.
- And, of course, wiki.
If it works, could we see such a plant in the Eagle Ford or the Bakken?
I don't think that CH4 to CH3OH project has been decided yet. You are getting a very false picture from that news article. It's just a possibility. No FID. Heck, even their Texas project has only just had funding for an initial engineering estimate (not FIDed either).
ReplyDeleteIt's a press conference and a computer generated image of a chemical plant. They didn't even bother making a new one for the Marcellus facility, but showed a copy of the future TX plant (not started construction, just photoshopped).
And that company is not exactly a heavy hitter. Not a major. Very speculative, with no significant current production. Just future projects and green chemicals crap on their website. They got some seed money and hired people. We'll see if they turn out to be another Cheniere or another Solyndra. This is not that different from hype hype projects you've seen in the Bakken that never materialized.
Bakken would be a candidate if the economics remain, especially given how Brandonites have made it impossible to build more natgas pipes (as discussed today in RBN Daily). I don't see the EF needing such a plant given the good access out of basin there. You might have a Gulf Coast MeOH plant, but you're not really tied to a stranded natgas basin then, just using Gulf Coast natty (pretty closely tied to Henry Hub and not stranded).
The Marcellus had three crackers proposed, discussed, etc. And only one moved to construction. Other two shelved. And you can do a search on methanol plant cancelled and find lots of previous MeOH plants in WA, LA, and even Arabia, that have been discussed and then shelved. But again, you've seen this sort of thing in ND also with refineries, fertilizer plants, etc. hyped up and then never constructed.
For the archives.
ReplyDeletegiven permitting/funding/construction lead times versus a rapidly changing landscape of pipelines, LNG exports and especially in a region that has major players in refining and commodity value-add, this ocean boil seems hopeful at best? Like the concept and integrated I/O so might work well somewhere where output is more limited or restricted and input less valued or stranded.
ReplyDeleteFor the archives.
Delete