Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by LP on May 28, 2011 at 15:40

I would love to read some thoughts on this too. Will be following with great interest.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by North LA on May 28, 2011 at 15:49

This would redefine transportation fuel but I'm skeptical.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by dbob on May 28, 2011 at 16:07

Stay skeptical,  

 

I didn't see anything in the text of the presentation really dealing with the key issue for widespread GTL - the efficiency of the process.  I don't have the right number in front of me, but the conversion of gas to liquids is something like 30-60% efficient.  Until you can get it close to 90% efficient, I can't see GTL being adopted on a large scale.  The build out of cng/lng filling capacity that is currently ongoing should be sufficient to prove technology and give manufacturers the ability to work out kinks on large scale vehicle production.  

 

So what you wind up being left with is GTL for stranded gas (areas that don't have pipeline infrastructure and won't get it) or in the early stages of a play when sufficient capacity isn't available to move gas.  

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Stanley T. Weiner on June 2, 2011 at 7:51

I have looked into GTL technology. The only problem is that the only two actively operating systems in the world are about the size of football fields and require very high volumes of natural gas. The technology for smaller systems is on its way, but it will be at a high price and many years away. 

We have small natural gas generators that we can use low volume casinghead gas, stranded, and/or low BTU gas to convert to electricity and then sell it into the electricity grid in Texas and other states that have deregulated electricity markets. We can convert sour gas or gas  that has high nitrogen content that has at least 500 BTU, without the cost of stripping the nitrogen or sulfur out. It takes 75mcf or less to run our machines.

Visit www.jncenergy.com or contact Lee@jncenergy.com. 

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Stevew on May 28, 2011 at 18:27

I'll admit that I don't understand much about this process.  However, Aubrey is hungry for the "Holy Grail" to carry all the natural gas we are producing.  We need to find a "Holy Grail" way of processing and transporing and above all, USING natural gas.

 

I also can see him seizing on anything that looks like it makes money and saves face. This is the same man who made the infamous "chump change" remark about $30,000 an acre royalties.

 

All in all, I bet that he would really check out something before lavishing words like "holy grail" on it.  We do need one for NG.  He just might be a man who learns from his failures.  I think he's probably got something here.

 

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Bwanablue on June 2, 2011 at 4:04

Hope this link works.

http://www.aogr.com/index.php/magazine/current_issue_cover_story/

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Charles Bowman on June 2, 2011 at 6:08

You should study;  Fischer–Tropsch process,

This process was developed by the Germans during WW2, basically converts natural gas to low sulfur diesel fuel. I would imagine CHK’s  so called holy grail follows this same process and is being touted as a new break-through technology, when actually this process could have been used years ago to keep the price of fuel much lower. My suspicion is CHK needed to make a few changes to a 70-year-old process, enabling them to seek a patent on their holy grail technology.   

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Stevew on June 2, 2011 at 6:49

The Holy Grail is really a process to make diesel fuel from natural gas??

 

Wow.  No wonder those knights in the middle ages never found it!

 

Seriously, if CHK could make motor fuel from natural gas it would be a holy grail to being able to sell its ng.  A process like this could have a huge effect on trucking right away.  This is the best news I have seen about using the natural gas that we have in such abundance.

 

Logger

 

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Henry on June 7, 2011 at 1:12

Several years ago, the US Air Force did a demonstration, in which they used GTL technology to create a fuel suitable for use in their airplanes.  They flew a plane with a 50/50 (at least, I think it was 50/50) mixture of this fuel and conventional jet fuel.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by P.G. on June 2, 2011 at 7:25

I wonder what price it would sell for to the consumer?

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by dbob on June 2, 2011 at 8:07

Again, the conversion efficiancy of FT is pretty poor - maybe 45% hydrocarbon recovery if everything is working right. Its been around since WWII, and has been used in Nazi Germany, South africa, and a variety of other locales. Maybe if someone finds btter membranes and better catalysts, it will be a go, but until then, it is a niche market.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by John W. Powell on June 6, 2011 at 17:29

The Germans developed this process in the late 1920's as Fischer-Tropsch, giving them purer fuels, pollution-free, and aiding their suuperiority in rocketry. While I was integral to developing the first horizontal wells in Alaska for BP in 1983 this GTL conversion process was assigned an economic breakeven point of 30-35$ per bbl for monetizing huge stranded gas reserves. Sasol and Rentek pioneered the first large scale plants, with Exxon and Mobil and then many other majors jumping onboard. The lastest price point is $40 to make a bbl of of a variety of pure pollution-free synfuels from natural gas. There are pilot plants scattered all over the world, used primarily to blend with heavy crudes to adjust API gravities required by different refineries. It is hard to know what the global capacity is but was well over a million bbls per day quite a few years ago. When BP laid me off as a drilling engineer in 1999 it was because oil was $9/bbl. Now that the majors have swallowed up so many companies all they need to do is raise the price of oil rather than retool and expand the playing field, diluting their power and control. But as a matter of national security, global peace, air pollution, and climate change, the manufacture of pollution-free GTLs would make the US energy-independent and add millions of jobs. "Holy Grail" is a bit mystical for a nearly 100 yr old technology that has long since proven viable. There were several 400,000 bbl a day plants in the works 10 yrs ago and a Google search would turn up reams of process diagrams and economic data. That has all been taken down and the "little people" are once again in the dark. P.S. At 100$/bbl every depleted oilfied in the world is worth re-drilling. It is not a techological barrier facing GTL, it is Big Oil and politics = corruption. Case in point the engineer working in the cubicle next to mine blew up the Macondo well in the GOM that was flowing 100,000+ bbls per day. You might recall BP said initially 1,000 bbls a day, 42,000 gal/dfay, or about 30 gal/min, what you could get through a 1.5" hose at 80 psi...so don't believe everything you hear about GTL being "pie in the sky" or "holy grail" elusive, or futurist, it is more like back to the future. 

• ▶ Reply

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• 2
• Next ›
• Page