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GRT-INC.COM > Opportunity - Licensing, Commercialization, Development with GRT, Inc.
GRT's technology will be deployed commercially for natural gas conversion in medium and smaller stranded gas fields and offshore facilities where it is ideally applicable to monetize previously low value natural gas. Giant sized (>50,000 bpd) gas fields, whenever located with access to gas pipelines to natural gas markets, inevitably prefer that route to monetize their gas. Other giant gas fields thousands of miles from market have chosen LNG as the route to market. Several have considered FT based GTL technology, and only a handful of such 100,000+bpd plants will come on stream in the next 5 years. There are relatively few giant gas fields in the world and gas prices at those locations are subject to upward pressure from host governments and the market.
This leaves thousands of medium or smaller size gas fields remaining where the GRT process is able to offer a cost effective or environmentally compelling solution. Worldwide locations include:
- The medium size and smaller fields where a lack of gas pipelines or LNG export facilities have until now prevented the gas to be exported to domestic or international markets. Operators will look to our new technology to act as a facilitator in the monetization of these stranded assets. Regions such as West Africa, the southern Gulf of Mexico and parts of South East Asia are particularly lacking such alternative infrastructure.
- Offshore platforms that can be re-engineered to accommodate our small footprint reactor.
- New generation floating, production, storage and offloading vessels (FPSOs)
- Older fields where re-injection has caused the gas/oil mix to become too gas rich to allow efficient oil production.
- Any area where petrochemical companies (starting with our strategic partners) see an opportunity to use the gas feedstock.
- Renewable biogas sites (landfills, waste water treatment plants etc.)
- Possible military and other governmental applications.
The first commercial fuels plants may be expected to be under construction by 2010 in conjunction with our strategic fuels partner.
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By any measure, a gigantic market.
GRT's technology will enable users to bring converted gas into the 1 billion ton liquid fuels and chemicals markets worldwide, currently with a combined value of over $500 billion and forecast to grow at 4-5% p.a. With expectations that oil prices will continue to be high for decades to come, the markets will move to less expensive feedstocks, including natural gas and coal. Natural gas is the first choice to gain market share from oil as the world moves away from "black" hydrocarbons.The largest market, Gasoline, consumes 1 billion tons per year of crude oil worth $380 billion and with an annual growth rate worldwide greater than 5% p.a. The blending of the final gasoline product is complex and dependent upon regulations, automobile specifications, environmental regulations, etc. To offset the restricted components, refiners turn to other components to maintain performance. Mixtures of high-octane hydrocarbon species are particularly valuable. Gasoline made by the GRT process technology will be rich in these higher value components. Very importantly, since the gasoline is made from natural gas, it does not contain sulfur components of oil based fuel and thus is termed a "clean fuel".
Other fuels markets include Ethanol (50 million tons p.a., $16 billion pa in fuel sales worldwide); Methanol which has an annual market of almost $7 billion with over one third of it for producing MTBE; and Dimethyl Ether (DME), (presently under 1 million tons p.a.), a cleaner burning substitute for crude oil-based diesel and a strong candidate for use in fuel cell powered vehicles. The GRT process can be used for all these markets.
The major chemical products that the GRT cataloreactant process can produce include:
- Cyclics and aromatics (benzene, toluene, xylene, phenol, cyclohexene) a market currently worth ~ $20 billion (North American production in 2002 was some 18 million tons).
- Higher olefins and alcohols for detergents a market addressable by GRT process products currently worth ~ $ 2 billion (two to three million tons).
- Light olefins (ethylene and propylene) at 2004 volumes of 120 million and 40 million tons respectively there is a combined annual market of ~ $70 billion, with ethylene being the largest volume organic chemical produced worldwide.
- Epoxides and di-alcohols (ethylene/propylene oxide, ethylene/propylene glycol) intermediates for the production of several vital chemical products, current market ~ $12 billion.
- Light alcohols (methanol, ethanol, propanol, butanol) in addition to the fuel use of methanol and ethanol, all have substantial markets as chemical intermediates and solvents and a combined market of ~ $9 billion.
- Ethoxylates (surfactants) widely used in household cleaning and personal care products, yielding a market value of ~ $ 4 billion.
- Amines (aniline) $1.4 billion.
- Aldehydes and ketones (acetone, propanal, ethanal) $ 1 billion.
Since the market for GRT's 21st century Gas Conversion Technology is the medium size and smaller gas fields, we do not intend to compete with conventional GTL technology (based on FT chemistry) or LNG. FT, GTL and LNG facilities are economically competitive only in the largest gas fields which produce more than 50,000 bpd of liquid GTL product and cost over a billion dollars. Only fields with more than 5 Tcf of reserves are suitable for FT GTL or LNG (approximately 200 fields) whereas more than 3000 fields have between 0.1 and 5 Tcf of gas reserves which may be exploited by the GRT process.
Simply put, GRT's competitive advantages are:
- The use of low cost natural gas from medium and smaller size gas fields where existing technology cannot work economically (variable cost advantage).
- A simple process technology which allows compact, small scale (500-5,000 bpd) facilities to be built and operated at a relatively low cost (fixed cost advantage).
The specific competitive advantages of GRT's 21st Century Gas Conversion Technology that achieve reductions in both the variable cost and the fixed cost of production to make fuel and chemical products (which in themselves have advantages) include:
- The use of low cost or free natural gas as a feedstock (variable cost reduction).
- Relative insensitivity to common natural gas contaminants reducing required feedstock clean-up and allowing the use of lower grade gas sources (fixed and variable cost reduction).
- A simplified chemical process which reduces process steps and thus capital and operating costs (fixed cost reduction).
- With lower capital cost, plants can be sited at smaller, otherwise uneconomical, stranded gas fields (variable cost reduction) and on offshore platforms.
- The production of a variety of chemicals that can be made with the same basic plant configuration (product advantage).
- The novelty of solid cataloreactant process that can make gasoline directly, while F-T product requires additional processing to make gasoline (product advantage).
- The production of fuels that are free of common contaminants (sulfur) and are thus "clean fuels" (product advantage).
The GRT Technology:
Does not require synthesis gas formation
simpler process, less steps, less cost
The figure below illustrates how the GRT process cost advantage can translate into overall competitive product economics. The total cost of producing products is the sum of the fixed and variable costs (diagonal lines).
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The simplified GRT process is designed for a process cost of ~ $130/ton. This gives the GRT process a $50/ton competitive advantage over existing natural gas technology and a $95/ton advantage over $30/barrel oil-derived products; the GRT process advantage is even higher at small and medium size sites.
Product Advantages
- "Clean" products produced free of sulfur
- Fuels are "high octane".
- Product composition can be tailored to market.
While unlikely to be of interest to small to medium size fields producing fuels, the GRT process has the unique feature that allows different products to be made from the same feedstock by a relatively simple change in the cataloreactant material and reactor conditions. This allows for the possibility of shifting the plant product to match changing market conditions.
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Last Updated: October 9, 2006
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© GRT, Inc. 2006
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