Solid Energy looks at partner for next stage of lignite project

An initial scoping study considered five individual product options and opportunities for polygeneration of products, including the possibility of producing up to 40,000 barrels per day of high quality diesel. The company’s preliminary conclusions are that the projects with the most potential are transport fuels, urea, electricity generation, or a combination of these.

The multi billion dollar lignite project would take a minimum of five years to develop and would be based on the estimated 600 million tonnes lignite resource in the Mataura/Croydon area of Eastern Southland. The resource is sufficient to support a world-scale liquid fuels plant for more than 40 years.

CO2 is a by-product of any of these options and Solid Energy has carried
out significant work in this area. There are many options available to manage the CO2 footprint from a lignite-based project, including:

• purchasing CO2 credits (if emissions trading is introduced)
• paying a tax (if there is a carbon tax)
• carbon capture and storage.
• forestry offsets (under the Government’s Permanent Forest
• Sinks Initiative policy).
• off-shore carbon reduction investment Clean Development Mechanism (CDM – part of the Kyoto protocol).

A combination of these is likely to provide the optimal carbon management solution for the project.

Mr Bragg said that the cost of the next pre-feasibility stage of establishing which options to pursue, was likely to cost in the tens of millions of dollars. An international partner will be sought.

Solid Energy has been talking to the South African-based Sasol company, he said. Sasol has developed world-leading technology for the conversion of low grade coal into value-added synfuels and chemicals.


Source: Solid Energy