A Gas-to-Liquids (GTL) demonstration facility in Russia, which will be designed and built by Rosneft, will use the Microchannel Fischer-Tropsch (FT) technology from the Oxford Catalysts Group.
The facility is scheduled for completion in 2014 and it will be situated at Angarsk Petrochemical Complex of Rosneft in Irkutsk Oblast. The GTL demonstration plant will have an annual production capacity of 10 million cubic metres of natural gas, which is equivalent to about 100 barrels of synthetic crude per day.
The microchannel FT technology will minimize the footprint of the facility and decreases capital and operating costs. The plant will also employ the proprietary partial oxidation process of Gazohim Techno, a Russian technology commercialization company. The GTL facility will convert associated gas resulting from production of oil into synthetic crude or superior downstream products, such as naphtha, waxes and synthetic diesel. Oxford Catalysts Group’s Commercial Director, Jeff McDaniel, commented that Rosneft has an aim to decrease flaring and to use associated gas in an efficient manner. The company’s microchannel FT reactor technology is suitable for this kind of application. They look forward to co-operatively work with Gazohim and Rosneft to successfully start the operation of the plant, added Jeff McDaniel.
The CEO of Gazohim Techno, Sergey Dolinskiy, noted that Oxford Catalysts’ technology has been selected after a broad analysis and it is found to be an ideal combination with their proprietary partial oxidation process for application in the mini-GTL market.