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Lignite briquettes a success for Solid Energy
3 August 2010 - A trial in North Dakota has successfully upgraded Southland lignite into high-energy briquettes, taking resources company Solid Energy a step closer to building a pilot briquetting plant in Eastern Southland.
Sources: Solid Energy and Lindsay Clark
Solid Energy welcomed the trial’s success which was carried out by Solid Energy’s joint venture partner GTL Energy. GTLE recently commissioned the first of its own commercial-scale lignite upgrading plant near South Heart, North Dakota in the United States.
The North Dakota plant has produced its first high-energy, low-moisture briquettes and, at the end of 2009, successfully completed the Solid Energy bulk sample trial and combustion trials on 420 tonnes of New Vale Mine lignite that was shipped from Bluff for testing.
The trials were part of a joint venture agreement between Solid Energy and GTLE to investigate the feasibility of building a pilot briquetting plant that could upgrade about 100,000 tonnes of lignite per annum mined at Solid Energy’s New Vale opencast mine, near Mataura.
Solid Energy’s general manager new energy, Brett Gamble, was impressed by the trial results, which boded well for Solid Energy’s proposed pilot briquetting plant in Southland. “GTLE reduced the moisture of the New Zealand lignite by an average of approximately 65%, raising the energy content by about 50%, so it turns lignite into a product that is on a par with Ohai coal”, he said.
“The final test though is how well it performs in local conditions,” Mr Gamble said. “We are bringing the trial batch back for our own commercial customers in New Zealand to test in their boilers. The data from these further trials will inform our decisions on the pilot briquetting plant.”
The proposed Southland plant is the first of three Solid Energy lignite development projects planned for lignite resources in the Waimumu, Croydon and Mataura areas of Southland. All these projects are expected to achieve full carbon compliance by using a range of options to reduce CO2 emissions, including carbon capture and storage, biosequestration and biofeedstock options.
GTLE Chief Executive Officer Robert French said he was delighted that the lignite upgrading technology has been proven on a commercial scale in North Dakota. The upgrading process to remove moisture from low rank coals also reduces harmful emissions, including carbon dioxide, Mr French said. These results provide both companies with significant opportunities to utilise lignite in an environmentally responsible way.
