Sasol and Shenhua to turn coal into fuel
March 31, 2011 Category Alternative energy, Environment
China has granted initial environmental approval to an USD8.8 billion project by the South African petrochemical firm Sasol and China’s top coal producer Shenhua Group to turn coal into fuels. The environmental clearance brought the project, potentially one of the largest foreign investments in China, a step closer to final approval by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), after nearly a decade of talks between the two companies. The project, to be built in the Ningxia Hui autonomous region, plans to produce 3.16 million tons of diesel and 655,500 tons of naphtha a year. After backing coal-to-liquid (CTL) investments as a way of improving energy security and easing its growing dependence on foreign oil, China went cold on the technology in 2008, canceling dozens of projects amid concerns about high costs and the impact it would have on scarce local water supplies. The country’s massive coal industry has also been developing its own coal-liquefying technology, which the government favors. Shenhua Group, parent of Shenhua Energy Co, has built its first CTL plant in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, which is expected to produce 3 million tons a year by 2015, the China Daily reports.
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