Three energy and industrial companies--Shenhua Group, Shanghai
Huayuan Group and Shanghai Electric Group--jointly invested more
than 100 million yuan (US$12 million) in China's first coal
liquefaction research center, according to an engineer with the
China Coal Research Institute.
Shenhua, one of the nation's largest coal companies, has taken
an 80 percent stake in the center. Local industrial companies
Shanghai Huayuan and Shanghai Electric have taken 10 percent
each.
The center mainly explores and develops direct and indirect coal
liquefaction technologies, said the engineer. With this technology,
coal is broken down into small molecules with hydrogen to form oil
molecules that are then refined into diesel, gasoline and other
petroleum products.
The center will also become a research headquarters providing
technology support and engineer training for China's first coal
liquefaction project in north China's Inner
Mongolia Autonomous Region. Shenhua Group is the investor in
the US$3.3 billion coal liquefaction project.
Because production costs are far higher than those for
conventional oil products, commercial coal liquefaction projects
have all but buckled elsewhere.
Still, the Chinese government wants to increase research as it
faces a growing oil supply shortage. The government hopes the
technology may be used for short-term supply supplements if oil
imports slow or prices surge.
China is now the second-largest oil consumer in the world, after
the United States. It is widely expected to import half of its oil
by 2010.
Sources said the research center was originally to be built in
Tianjin, in northern China. But Shanghai offered ready access to
the necessary industrial gases.
Shenhua has almost completed construction of the Inner Mongolia
coal liquefaction project's infrastructure, reports say.
Operations of its first production line are expected to commence
by 2005 to produce 1 million tons of gasoline and diesel fuel a
year.
It is expected to process 15 million tons of coal to produce 5
million tons of oil products, with four more production lines
becoming operational by 2008.
Shenhua is planning the second phase of the project with a total
investment of 60 billion yuan (US$7.3 billion).
Shenhua's project is the only coal liquefaction project that the
government has approved for trial operation.
Plans for two similar coal-to-oil projects in southwest China's
Yunnan
Province and northeast China's Heilongjiang
Province have been shelved until the government evaluates the
performance of the Shenhua project.
(China Daily March 12, 2004)