Chinese coal producer reaps huge profits from CTL project
The cost of Coal liquefaction, done to provide substitutes for all the fuels and other products we now derive from petroleum, has been raised as an objection to the implementation of Coal liquefaction technology.
We have in previous reports documented cost analyses, which demonstrate that Coal conversion can, indeed, be very cost-competitive with petroleum; and, maybe even more than competitive, especially if we consider the indirect loss of wealth to our nation, and to our domestic economy, incurred by both the purchase of foreign petroleum and the expenditures we, as a nation, must make to defend both those overseas sources of oil and the transportation routes that bring the oil from them, to us.
We have also noted the decades-long experience of South Africa in converting Coal into liquid hydrocarbon transportation fuels, and, their plans for increasing and expanding production; the obvious assumption being that they wouldn't have kept doing it for so long, and plan to do more of it, if it weren't a profitable undertaking, especially since they no longer endure international economic sanctions.
Furthermore, we have documented the extensive Coal conversion industrialization plans formulated by China, surmising that such a pragmatic nation wouldn't be making such an effort if they didn't know that it made economic sense to do so.
Apparently, it more than makes economic sense to them.
The headline of the article we enclose, via the above link, says it all:
"China Coal Producer Reaps Huge Profits From CTL Project
Shenhua Group, China's largest coal producer, has made huge profits from its pilot coal-to-liquid (CTL) project in north China in the first three months of this year, a company executive said Saturday.
Zhang Yuzhuo, general manager of Shenhua Group, said at a forum held in east China's Anhui Province that the group's CTL project in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region ... brought more than 100 million yuan (15.38 million U.S. dollars) in profits.
(Remember: This is only a "pilot" Coal liquefaction facility.)
The CTL project, which is seen as an important way to provide an alternative to petroleum, was completed in late 2008 as the world's first large CTL gas plant.
With annual capacity expected to reach one million tonnes, the pilot project operated for 5,000 hours last year and produced 450,000 tonnes of oil products, according to Zhang.
Sources with the group had said that Shenhua was considering injecting the assets of the CTL project into China Shenhua Energy Co., the group's listed arm, after it begins to accumulate profits."
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West Virginia and Pennsylvania are among the "largest coal producer"s in the USA.
Wouldn't it be nice to see them begin to "accumlate" "Huge Profits From CTL"?