Coal Conversion's "ExxonMobil"

 
It goes without saying how much we all love our Big Oil conglomerates, such as Chevron, which began life as Standard Oil of California, and along it's amoebic way assimilated such sentimentally-remembered companies as Gulf and Texaco; and, of course, the genre's quintessential beast, ExxonMobil.
 
Now, unless we, in the US, move quickly to both embrace and reduce to practice the very real technologies which exist for converting our abundant Coal into the liquid hydrocarbons we need, we might soon have a new Frankenstein monster of fuels, pieced together out of disparate parts, to contend with.
 
We have, in the course of our dispatches, documented both the long-established Coal liquefaction expertise of South Africa's SASOL, and, the burgeoning Coal liquefaction industry in China.
 
As reported herein, they contemplate mating.
 
Comment follows excerpts from the enclosed link to:
 
"China Shenhua may cooperate with South Africa's Sasol on CTL project


BEIJING, Jul. 7, 2010 (Xinhua News Agency) -- The China Shenhua Group, the largest coal producer in China, may work with South Africa's Sasol (NYSE:SSL) , the world's largest coal to liquids (CTL) producer, on a CTL project in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, Northwest China, reported Shanghai Securities News.

Rob Davies, South Africa's minister of trade and industry, is expected to sign a joint venture agreement for a CTL project during his current visit to China.

Davies is quoted as saying the project would be located in Ningxia with a total investment of about 8 to 10 billion US dollars, and would be jointly established by Sasol and a Chinese company.

Zhang Yuzhuo, the general manager of China Shenhua Energy, said earlier that Shenhua and Sasol had completed a feasibility assessment of a CTL project, and the Development and Reform Commission of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region also confirmed later that it has submitted the CTL project plan of the two companies to the National Development and Reform Commission.

Rob Davies confirmed that the project is still actively being promoted and is expected to make significant progress in the near future, which would mean China achieving a major breakthrough in the CTL field.

Sasol is a global petrochemical group producing fuels and chemicals. Sasol Ltd., the holding company of the Sasol group, is jointly listed on the Johannesburg and New York stock exchanges.

Sasol's primary business is based on CTL and gas-to-liquid (GTL) technology and this differentiates it from other petrochemical companies. CTL and GTL plants convert coal and natural gas respectively into liquid fuels."