This story is a of recent energy deal regarding a GTL plant with petrochemical production. Operations are scheduled to begin 2018. $14B to convert natural gas to transportation fuels and petrochemicals. With feedstock prices having been mostly stable and low the last few years 9i.e., since 2009), I have read elsewhere that GTL plants are horribly risk sensitive to feedstock price changes. Are supplies really going to be that predictable and stable to commit that kind of capital with that kind of risk? Sasol and the State of Louisiana thinks so, and after that price will gradually increase according to the EIA (http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/aeo/er/early_prices.cfm). At present there is also important research and pilot projects for the direct use of NG powering ships, trains, trucking, and other modes of transportation. Which is the right approach, or do each have their own individual benefits/advantages? Watching and learning.
Pump jacks are seen in the Midway Sunset oilfield, California, April 29, 2013. The nearby vast Monterey shale formation is estimated by the U.S. Energy Information Administration to hold 15 billion barrels of technically recoverable oil, or four times that of the Bakken formation centered on North Dakota. Most of that oil is not economically retrievable except by hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, a production-boosting technique in which large amounts of water, sand and chemicals are injected into shale formations to force hydrocarbon fuels to the surface. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson
South Africa-based energy and chemical giant Sasol Limited (NYSE:SSL) plans to spend as much as $14 billion to build the first commercial plant in the U.S. that will turn natural gas produced from shale rock into low-emission diesel and other transportation fuels.
Sasol eyed the U.S. and specifically Louisiana as the site for its gas-to-liquid (GTL) facility because of the low costs of producing shale gas, thanks in part to hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which has created an oil and gas boom in the U.S., an Abu-Dhabi based news agency, The National, reported Sunday.
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