Ikelic - Alliance Digital Repository

NATURAL GAS
The South African Parliamentary Joint Committee
of Public Accounts Is said to be considering
several possibilities including pressuring existing
wells and drawing gas from satellite wells.
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CORPORATIONS
RENTECH RAISES MONEY TO HELP
DEVELOPMENT EFFORTS
Rentech Inc. of Denver, Colorado raised about
$1 .3 million in a public stock offering in Septem
ber. The money will enable the company to fur
ther its commercialization of the Synhytech
process for converting synthesis gas to diesel
fuel and waxes.
Rentech has a project in Henan Province of
China under way to convert low-grade coal gas
into town gas, a cheaper alternative to heat build
ings in several cities.
Two other projects are slated for the states of
Gujarat and Arunachal Pradesh in India.
In the past 11 years, the company has lost
$3.4 million as it developed and finally brought
the technology, a variation on Fischer-Tropsch
Chemistry, to market.
For the Chinese project at Yima City, Lurgi
Australia is providing
tion and gas purification technology,
the fixed-bed coal gasifica
which con
verts the coal into synthesis gas. Some of that
gas will be sent to a byproducts plant, where
Rentech-developed technology will convert It into
naphtha, waxes and diesel fuel.
Rentech is part-owned by an Australia engineer
ing consultant group. CMPS&F, which has
teamed with another Australian company, Energy
Equipment, to build the facility in Yima City under
an A$90 million contract.
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5-4
GOVERNMENT
NEW ZEALAND REFORMS AFFECT SYNFUEL
PLANT
A September article in the Qji & &S Journal
(O&GJ) notes that, on the 25th anniversary of the
discovery of its key source of hydrocarbon
production, offshore super-giant Maui
gas/condensate field, New Zealand faces some
critical choices in its energy future.
Maui, which supplies about 32 percent of New
Zealand's primary energy demand, is expected
to enter into decline after the turn of the century.
Discovered in 1969, Maui reserves then were es
timated at 5 trillion cubic feet of gas and
130 million barrels of condensate.
The field accommodates three-fourths of New
Zealand's natural gas demand. Its production
not only provides most of the natural gas con
sumed in the residential sector, it also feeds the
Motonui methanol-to-gasoline synfuels plant and
several petrochemical plants as well as two
electrical powerplants.
According to O&GJ the New Zealand Govern
ment has undergone a dramatic turnaround in its
approach to energy policy.
When oil import dependence became a concern
in the early 1970s, the New Zealand Government
intervened to make Maui the cornerstone of ef
forts to minimize dependence on foreign oil by
converting Maui gas to gasoline and creating a
new petroleum product export industry.
The country almost doubled total energy self-
sufficiency to 81 percent during 1975-1990 and
increased liquid fuels self-sufficiency from
4 percent in 1 975 to 51 percent in 1 990.
With Maui decline looming and a dearth of ex
ploration activity, the New Zealand Government
recently implemented steps designed to spark in
terest in oil and gas drilling by foreign com
panies.
THE SYNTHETIC FUELS REPORT, JANUARY 1995