New Twist on Old Technology Yields Ultra-Clean Transportation Fuels from Natural Gas, Coal

(I-Newswire) May 6, 2005 - Tulsa, Okla. - New technology developed with funding from the Department of Energy (DOE) is bolstering the nation's portfolio of ultra-clean liquid transportation fuels by deriving them from both natural gas and coal.

Two projects managed by DOE's National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) use a proprietary technology developed by Syntroleum Corp. of Tulsa, OK, to convert these abundant raw fossil fuels into ultra-clean diesel fuel and other environmentally friendly liquid fuels.

The natural-gas-based project logged a major milestone in March when Syntroleum's gas-to-liquids demonstration plant at Port of Catoosa, OK, achieved a cumulative production level of 200,000 gallons of ultra-clean fuels.

Also in March, DOE announced funding of $4.5 million for a coal-to-liquids project that would further develop Syntroleum technology to produce ultra-clean diesel fuel at a plant to be built in an as-yet-undetermined coal-producing state. The funding was part of a broader award of $62.4 million for 32 U.S. clean-coal research projects.

The lead partner in both projects with Syntroleum is Integrated Concepts & Research Corporation (ICRC), a subsidiary of Koniag Inc., an Alaskan Native Corporation with offices in Anchorage and Kodiak, AK. Marathon Oil Corporation also is a partner in the Catoosa demonstration plant.

The goal for both projects is to produce a cleaner diesel motor fuel than is typically available from refining crude oil, while, at the same time, using an alternative feedstock that is more abundant in the United States. The nation imports only about one seventh of its natural gas supply (on a net basis) and is a net exporter of coal, whereas America's dependency on imports to meet its crude oil needs now averages almost 65 percent.

Syntroleum's processes are based on a technology that has been around more than 70 years. German scientists Franz Fischer and Hans Tropsch developed a process for converting coal into liquid fuels in the early 1920s. The Fischer-Tropsch (FT) process is still used for coal-to-liquids production in South Africa, and a gas-to-liquids demonstration plant started up in that country last year.

Gas-to-liquids technologies have received a great deal of petroleum industry attention in recent years. But what's envisioned are usually megaprojects costing upwards of several billion dollars and tied to gas fields holding 50–500 trillion cubic feet in reserves. Most of these megaprojects are planned for the Middle East, home to the lion's share of the world's oil and gas reserves.

That's where the Catoosa gas-to-liquids plant comes in. The DOE project called for the design and construction of a modular, "small-footprint" plant for converting natural gas to an ultra-clean diesel motor fuel, scaled to a gas reserves source of only 1–3 trillion cubic feet. The plant would produce sizable quantities of a synthetic crude oil feedstock from natural gas that would then be converted to finished products such as diesel or jet fuel via FT and hydroprocessing steps.

The Catoosa gas-to-liquids plant, which went on stream in November 2003, produces about 70 barrels per day of ultra-clean diesel. The plant design allowed for a 25 percent reduction in construction and operating costs because the Syntroleum process relies on air rather than oxygen-thus avoiding the cost and safety issues with an onsite oxygen plant.

"This process differs from those of the majors in two areas: it uses air, rather than oxygen to form syngas, and it's designed to be mobile," NETL Project Manager Kathy Stirling said. "The advantage of this system is that it can be moved to the resource, and its size is designed to take advantage of smaller resources that the majors cannot develop cost-effectively."

The small, modular nature and multiple-fuel capability of the Catoosa plant design gives it a portability and logistical flexibility that already has attracted the attention of the U.S. military for possible battlefield applications.

The ultra-clean diesels fueled Metrobuses in Washington, DC, and bus fleets in Alaska's Denali National Park. Early results showed significantly reduced emissions and improved vehicle performance. The gas-to-liquids diesel burns with much less soot commonly seen in diesel exhaust, and surpasses not only current but pending federal and state air quality standards for ultra-low levels of sulfur in fuels.

The Denali National Park summer testing was so successful, says Stirling, that park officials asked to continue use of the fuel into the winter months.

Another environmental benefit of gas-to-liquids is its potential to end natural gas venting or flaring-the controlled release or burning of gas that is sometimes economically necessary to produce the oil with which it is associated. More than 100 billion cubic meters of natural gas are lost annually to venting or flaring at sites around the world-enough to meet the natural gas needs of France and Germany.

Gas-to-liquids also holds the promise of monetizing an enormous natural gas resource that is "stranded" for lack of a market. The world's stranded gas reserves total about 2,500 trillion cubic feet. If this resource could find a market, it would exceed, in energy-equivalent terms, Saudi Arabia's proved oil reserves.

In the DOE-funded clean-coal project, ICRC and Syntroleum will evaluate commercially available coal gasification and synthesis gas cleanup technologies, and will seek to integrate these technologies with a cobalt catalyst-based FT process as a precursor to an eventual commercial-scale coal-to-liquids plant. The 24-month project will also field test 6,000 gallons of ultra-clean diesel produced from the cobalt-catalyst FT process. The idea is to introduce coal-to-liquids diesel in a U.S. market to gain market awareness and acceptance, similar to the introduction of gas-to-liquids diesel in Alaska and Washington, DC.

Such efforts support the Bush administration's efforts to diversify America's energy supply portfolio and bolster the nation's energy security.

- End of Techline -
For more information, contact:
David Anna, DOE National Energy Technology Laboratory, 412-386-4646, david.anna@netl.doe.gov

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