M.Phil. (Energy Studies) / South Africa has no commercially proven indigenous crude oil deposits. The country therefore follows a well formulated longterm energy policy to ensure a continuous and uninterrupted supply of transport fuels. The development of a very successful synfuel industry contributes to the national desire of maintaining a minimum level of self sufficiency in transport fuels. The Government also plays a supportive role in financing synthetic fuel projects from the Central Energy Fund. South Africa has abundant coal resources at a reasonable cost, as well as the offshore gas field near the coast of Mosselbay. The objective of this study is therefore to evaluate and compare the re1athe economics of certain direct and indirect coal liquefaction process routes, as well as the conversion of natural gas to transport fuels. The methanol option as a transport fuel is also addressed. Information for this study was collected mainly from the literature on this subject as well as Government institutions and private companies that are actively involved in the production of synthetic transport fuels. The primary conclusions of this study are: Synthetic fuel projects are capital intensive. The number of commercially proven options for the production of synfuels are limited to the well proven technology of the Sasol process, conventional methanol synthesis technology and to a lessor extent the Mobil methanol-to-gasoline technology. Accurate costs comparisons will therefore only be possible when more of the direct liquefaction options have been commercially demonstrated. Commercial realisat ion of the unproven technologies also involve enormous financial resources and a high risk. The Sasol synfuel option with the lowest thermal efficiency of approximately 42% requires the highest capital investment per ton or barrel of final product. The high severity direct processes (H-coal, Exxon-Donor-Solvent or EDS and the German Technology) as well as the Mobil-MTG capital investment follows, with the low severity and high thermal efficiency SRC-1 and SRC-2 process capital requirements the lowest, except for the very low,capital investment for a methanol synthesis plant...
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:uj/uj:3698 |
| Date | 10 February 2014 |
| Creators | Niemandt, Mathys Johannes |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Rights | University of Johannesburg |
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