|
Country |
Bituminous & Anthracite coal at end-2006 (million tonnes [teragrams]) |
|---|---|
 USA |
111,338 |
 India |
90,085 |
 China |
62,200 |
 Russia |
49,088 |
 Australia |
38,600 |
Posted on 08/05/2008 6:05:59 AM PDT by CarrotAndStick
| Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas) -- India's Ministry of Coal has received 22 applications in response to the bidding process it commenced early last month for the allocation of captive coal blocks for coal-to-liquid (: 36.06, -0.16, -0.44%) projects. Industry majors hopeful of securing captive coal mines include the Tata Group (Mumbai), Reliance Industries Limited (BOM:500325) (Mumbai) and Reliance Power Limited (BOM:532939) (Mumbai). RIL had sent in an $8 billion investment proposal to set up a CTL project with a capacity of 80,000 barrels per day (BBL/d) of oil and requiring 1.5 billion tons of coal reserves. Sasol Limited (NYSE:SSL) (Johannesburg, South Africa) had also expressed interest in partnering with the Tata Group for setting up a similar CTL project with a capacity of 80,000 BBL/d and investments of around $8 billion. For details, view the entire article by subscribing to Industrial Info's Premium Industry News at http://www.industrialinfo.com/showNews.jsp?newsitemID=136423, or browse other breaking industrial news stories at www.industrialinfo.com. Industrial Info Resources is a marketing information service specializing in industrial process, energy and financial related markets with products and services ranging from industry news, analytics, forecasting, plant and project databases, as well as multimedia services. For more information send inquiries to metalsandmineralsgroup@industrialinfo.com or visit us at www.industrialinfo.com. Related News Articles Indian Power, Cement and Steel Majors Scout for Overseas Coal Acquisitions Ban on Exports of Iron Ore and Steel Products Likely as India Continues To Battle Steel Price Hikes Australia's Riversdale Mines Major Coking Coal Reserve in Mozambique Contact: Joe Govreau 713-783-5147 SOURCE: Industrial Info Resources |
Fischer-Tropsch would work for us since we have enough coal for hundreds of years, but the enviro-nazis would not allow it............
|
Country |
Bituminous & Anthracite coal at end-2006 (million tonnes [teragrams]) |
|---|---|
| USA |
111,338 |
| India |
90,085 |
| China |
62,200 |
| Russia |
49,088 |
| Australia |
38,600 |
Don’t forget the Left will then compare us with South Africa and the Nazi party who were forced to resort to this nasty energy.
Can’t have that stigma hanging over us with the rest of the world...
Apparently the rest of the world doesn’t have a problem with it. China, India, South Africa and other places with lots of coal deposits are busy building CTL plants. But not us............
Coal-to-Oil technology has been around since WWII. The Germans did it a lot to obtain the gas needed for their armies. Trouble is, cost. A barrel of fuel via coal costs much more than even today’s oil-well product.
The figures that I have been seeing indicate that coal-to-liquid is competitive at an oil price of $45, which we are well above. The bulk of the cost is capital costs ($600-million to $700-million range for a 10,000 barrel per day plant). Investors don't like to risk $700M unless they can be sure that OPEC won't crash the price of oil and bankrupt them.
But at current prices, if the market price is $100, and the operating cost is $35/barrel, then the plant generates 10K * $65 = $650K/day or $237M per year, producing capital payback in 3 years, which makes it financially viable
A paper favoring coal-to-oil would be more persuasive if it didn’t coming from the National (Coal) Mining Institute.
As this WSJ article points out, the start up costs of these plants is immense, and the environmental impact is as big as Al Gore’s behind:
“It’s far from clear, however, that the world would be better off — economically or environmentally — by burning more coal to fuel cars and trucks.
One problem is that coal-to-oil projects are extremely expensive. A single plant capable of producing about 80,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day — less than 0.5 percent of America’s daily oil diet — would cost an estimated $6 billion or more to build.
Energy analysts reckon that some coal-to-liquids projects can offer an acceptable return on investment when oil is priced as low as $30 or $35 a barrel, though such ventures might require government tax incentives to reduce operating costs. It seems likely that oil prices will stay above that level for a while, but the longer-term outlook is anyone’s guess. An earlier flurry of interest in coal-to-oil facilities in the U.S. during the Carter administration in the late 1970s died after oil prices collapsed.
Coal-to-oil projects also pose serious environmental questions. When the South African facility superheats coal and turns it into a gas, one of the main waste products is carbon dioxide, thought to be a significant cause of global warming.
The Natural Resources Defense Council, a U.S.-based environmental advocacy group, estimates that the production and use of gasoline, diesel fuel, jet fuel and other fuels from crude oil release about 27.5 pounds of carbon dioxide per gallon. The production and use of a gallon of liquid fuel originating in coal emit about 49.5 pounds of carbon dioxide, they estimate. Even some boosters of the coal-to-oil plants describe them as carbon-dioxide factories that produce energy on the side.”
Further, the current cost of oil is driven up by government drilling restrictions, environment laws, and taxes. It is I think reasonable to assume that the new coal-to-oil plants, and the mining needed to produce that much more coal, would be subjected to the same restrictions/laws/taxes, driving up the theoretical cost of that fuel.
I’m not objecting to coal-to-oil per se. It’s probably a better idea than ethanol. I’m just noting that it has its own problems.
In the article I cited, the cost cited was around $70K per barrel-per-day of capacity. Currently China is having Sasol of South Africa construct two 80K bpd plant for $5B each, which is a capital cost of $63K per bpd (which is in the same ballpark as my earlier figure).
At current market prices, 80,000 barrels of oil per day amounts to 29.2 million barrels/year. At current market prices, that's $120 * 29.2M = $3.5 BILLION per YEAR
You seriously are trying to tell me that it is better to spend $3.5 Billion per year INDEFINITELY than to build a $6B plant?
And as an addendum to my last post, a US-based coal-to-liquids plant results in the money staying here in the US, providing jobs to American workers constructing the plants, rather than sending the money overseas to support the Global Jihad
I’m not trying to argue with you on the points you mention. The import of my last post was that, while China may indeed be able to order a plant for $5-6 billion and get competitively priced CTL, once the Libs in this country get in power, as they surely will someday, they’ll place so many regulations and restrictions on the CTL plants and the mining of the coal that the price of a barrel of CTL will be much higher than many are currently projecting.
I’m trying to compare a real world price of oil vs CTL, rather than a real world price of oil vs a theoretical price of CTL.
Because this is true, we will be imported finished gasoline from these mega-refinery complexes in the future.
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