Hunton Energy Takes on Financial Partner for Development of Texas IGCC

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas). Hunton Energy, a subsidiary of Hunton Group (Houston, Texas), is preparing to start its first foray into the power generation development field. Hunton Energy has a letter of intent with Cogentrix (Charlotte, North Carolina), a subsidiary of Goldman Sachs Group Incorporated (New York, New York), to build an integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) in Texas. Hunton Energy is maintaining a 35% interest and Cogentrix is taking the project lead with a controlling 65% interest.

The companies are starting with the development of a new clean burning 1,220-megawatt (MW) IGCC power plant that will primarily utilize petroleum coke. Cogentrix and Hunton are presently reviewing ConocoPhillips, General Electric Power Systems and Shell Global Solutions technologies to provide the gasification technology for the new station.

Hunton has lined up a long term contract with Valero Energy Corporation (NYSE:VLO ) (San Antonio, Texas) to provide the petroleum coke from its Texas refineries that will be the feedstock to produce the syngas. The new plant is to be built on about 200 acres in Fort Bend County near Richmond, Texas. The location is ideal because it has easy access to rail transportation, natural gas supply, and electrical transmission system.

The new station will consist of two power trains, each train will have two gas-fired combustion turbine/generators that will each have a waste heat recovery steam generator with supplementary duct-firing to supply steam to a steam turbine/generator. The station is scheduled to kick-off construction in the spring of 2008 with the first 610 MW phase set to go commercial in 2010. The second phase will follow a year or two later.

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