Sasol, Haldor-Topsoe Collaborate on GTL Licensing
Danish engineers Haldor Topsoe and South African Sasol are to collaborate on single-point licensing of proven and bankable gas-to-liquids (GTL) solutions to produce diesel, kerosene and naphtha from natural gas, they said December 2.
With a relatively low oil price, manufacturing synthetic oil products has generally been less profitable than liquefaction as a solution to stranded gas assets; but GTL burns more cleanly than diesel produced by refining crude.
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The Sasol-Topsoe partnership is a response to growing worldwide demand for efficient ways to make money from gas reserves and it will offer medium to large GTL solutions that are positioned to meet the demands of a sustainable future.
The two companies have worked together on numerous GTL projects for several decades, and Topsoe’s Syncor technologies and Sasol’s Fischer-Tropsch technologies have been licensed into several world-scale GTL ventures.
Under the collaboration agreement, the companies will continue to offer these core technologies and will now also provide Topsoe’s hydroprocessing and hydrogen technologies. This gives potential customers access to a single-point licensing offering that covers the entire value chain from gas feed to liquid fuels, they said.
Engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) firm TechnipFMC has been pre-approved to provide licensor engineering support and carry out front-end engineering design and EPC work. It was the EPC contractor for the Oryx GTL facility in Qatar and has performed a number of front-end engineering designs for GTL facilities, including the Uzbekistan GTL.
"Together, Sasol and Topsoe now offer customers complete and proven end-to-end GTL solutions. This is unique and extremely valuable for customers seeking bankable GTL solutions for monetising abundant natural gas reserves," said Topsoe.
Sasol said it was "delighted to enter into this collaboration arrangement." Although Sasol announced in 2017 it would not pursue future equity participation in greenfield coal to liquids or GTL opportunities, its Fischer-Tropsch technology has a role to play in monetising gas resources otherwise not accessible. It could also play a significant role, in conjunction with renewable energy resources, in converting greenhouse gases to sustainable liquid fuels," it said.