Ikelic - Alliance Digital Repository

NATURAL GAS
In addition to fiscal reforms, the government has
taken aggressive steps toward privatization.
One prediction is that New Zealand's domestic
hydrocarbon production, which now accounts
for 85 percent of its gas and transportation fuels
requirements, will account for only a 50 percent
share by 2000.
That forecast hinges on expectations for Maui.
New Zealand's synthetic fuels, methanol,
ammonia/urea, and electrical power industry es
sentially
were developed to take advantage of
low cost, abundant Maui gas. Accordingly, not
Maui production could see some of
replacing
those projects phase out or undertake costly
switches to more polluting fuels.
Of Maui production, 36 percent goes to
Electricity Corporation of New Zealand,
32 percent to the Motonui gas-to-gasoline plant,
19 percent to Natural Gas Corporation (NGC),
10 percent to the Petralgas methanol pant, and
3 percent to the Petrochem ammonia/urea plant.
The take or pay supply agreements for Maui gas
all will expire during 2003-2009. The Motonui con
tract expires in 2003 and the ammonia/urea and
methanol
plants'
contract in 2005.
Gas price increases could therefore make the
synthetic fuels and methanol plants uneconomic
by about 2009.
Retcher Challenge owns 68.75 percent of Maui
and notes that the giant field and its environs will
continue to play
Zealand's energy
voir has begun to decline.
an important role in New
sector even after the main reser
Remaining Maui interests are held by Shell
Petroleum Mining Ltd. (18.75 percent) and Todd
Petroleum Mining Ltd. (12.5 percent).
Maui production currently averages about
400-435 million cubic feet per day of gas.
5-5
New Zealand's government has reversed direc
tion on energy policy, changing from investing
heavily in energy projects to privatization and
deregulation.
In 1990, the government sold its interest in the
Motonui synfuels plant to Fletcher, which in turn
spun off its methanol and synfuels business and
NGC. Canada's Methanex New Zealand now
owns and operates both of New Zealand's
methanol plants and the synfuels plant.
####
TECHNOLOGY
BNL LIQUID PHASE METHANOL SYNTHESIS
FOUND PROMISING
Conventionally, methanol is produced in the gas
phase over copper-zinc-based oxide catalysts
according to the following reaction, which is
highly exothermic:
CO + 2 H2
= CH3OH
Recently, low-temperature methanol synthesis in
the liquid phase has received considerable atten
tion because it has the potential to overcome
problems found in the conventional methanol
processes. Two processes have been proposed:
- The
- The
Brookhaven National Laboratory
(BNL) low-temperature methanol
process
process through Methyl Formate
(MF) formation
Methanol synthesis via MF is supposed to
proceed by the following two reactions occurring
concurrently:
CH3OH + CO = HCOOCH
HCOOCH3 + 2H2 = 2 CH3OH
THE SYNTHETIC FUELS REPORT, JANUARY 1995