Sasol Invests in Clean Fuel Research and Launches Uzbekistan GTL Project

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Sasol Limited (NYSE:SSL) (Johannesburg), South Africa's hydrocarbons, fuel conversion and chemicals major, continues to push for new leading-edge projects throughout the world, while at the same time reinforcing the depth and intensity of its research activities.

At the end of June the company opened its new Fuels Application Center in Cape Town, which will be used to test the impact of the company's range of synthetic- and crude-oil-derived fuels on vehicle emission and performance. The work performed at the new center will build on research and development (R&D) activities carried out in Sasolburg and work done at the Sasol Advanced Fuels Laboratory at the University of Cape Town. The company is also investing more than $30 million in South African universities to ensure the long term availability of world-class chemists and engineers who, in part, will assist in the effective execution of R&D projects such as the Fuels Application Center.

Pat Davies, Chief Executive of Sasol, said that the company was proactively investigating and researching the optimum mix of solutions to reduce its carbon footprint. He said that collaboration and innovation would reveal solutions for the future, whether they came from Sasol's work involving renewable energy projects such as solar, wind, biomass and algae power, or through focused work on carbon capture and storage (CCS). The new $10 million center will provide a platform for innovative solutions that will help usher in the next generation of cleaner fuels, he added.

The center has six engine-test cells, and inside of each cell is a specific engine that is coupled to a dynamometer, allowing the engine to run under the entire scope of operating conditions experienced in normal application. Three of the six cells are equipped to analyze gases and particulate matter exhausts to determine the effects of various fuel formulations on emissions. This is being done in an effort to minimize greenhouse gas emissions.

In mid-July, Sasol confirmed that it had signed a joint venture agreement with Uzbekistan's national oil and gas company Uzbekneftegaz (Tashkent) and Malaysia's Petronas (Kuala Lumpur) to build a 1.3 million-ton-per-year gas-to-liquids (GTL) plant in Uzbekistan. This follows the signing of an agreement between Sasol and Petronas in April of this year. The partners, with equal stakes in the project, will begin a feasibility study regarding the $2.5 billion facility, which will have a production capacity of 36,000 to 40,000 barrels per day.

The GTL plant will use the Sasol proprietary Slurry Phase Distillate process to produce superior quality products such as GTL diesel, kerosene naphtha and liquefied petroleum gas. The process produces clean-burning, high-performance fuel for diesel engines. No details of the construction schedule or the gas feed source were given at the time of the announcement.

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