New GTL Process - Best Candidate for Reduction of CO2 in Natural Gas Utilization

Abstract

Abstract Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation (JOGMEC), which is a former Japan National Oil Corporation (JNOC), has been developing natural gas to liquids (GTL) conversion technology since the year of 1998 in collaboration with five private Japanese companies, namely; JAPEX Co. Ltd., Chiyoda Corp., COSMO Oil Co. Ltd., Nippon Steel Corp., and INPEX Corp. Our new GTL process is particularly effective when it is applied to natural gas feed stock containing 20-40mol% of CO2. It does not require the three expensive items; (1) an oxygen supply plant, (2) a unit for CO2 separation from natural gas, and (3) a H2 separation unit to optimize gas composition. The reduction of these facilities, which are indispensable to the conventional GTL process, would results in less CAPEX and OPEX. For our new GTL process, the most preferable CO2 content in feed natural gas is around 30mol%. Therefore, in case that the CO2 content is less than 30mol%, some amount of CO2 can be supplied from other CO2 sources, such as flare gas, associated gas, remaining CO2 of EOR and exhausted gas from oil refinery and LNG plant. This paper aims to present applications of our new GTL process to enable an economic exploitation of gas reserves in South East Asia and Australia, by taking into account the operation results of the Yufutsu GTL pilot plant of 7BPSD located at Tomakomai city in Hokkaido of Japan, and the study results of process simulation and the economics. We present an attractive combination scheme for our new GTL process with LNG plant by utilizing CO2 exhausted from LNG plant. It reduces initial project's investment compared with a stand-alone GTL plant located in South East Asia and Australia, where infrastructure of an LNG plant can be for common use with our GTL plant.