Related Articles
Top Stories
May 27 2012 11:21
There's a price war raging between South Africa's cellphone networks after Cell C lowered the rates of its prepaid calls by more than 34%.
May 27 2012 13:09
The oversupply of golf estates has claimed another victim.
May 28 2012 07:53
The City of Cape Town has spent R175m running the Myciti bus service since the Soccer World Cup compared to an income of R35m, a report says.
Beijing - Sasol, the world's largest maker of oil from coal, has agreed with China's Shenhua Group to jointly produce motor fuel from coal by 2016, Xinhua news agency reported on Friday.
Feasibility studies for two coal-to-liquid projects, in Shaanxi province and in the northwestern region of Ningxia, were expected to be completed by the end of 2009, Xinhua cited Sasol CEO Pat Davies as telling a news conference.
Each of the two projects will have a production capacity of 80 000 barrels per day, or 3.4m tonnes annually of diesel, naphtha, liquefied petroleum gas and jet fuel, the report said.
China, the world's top coal producer and consumer, is encouraging such projects to reduce its dependence on imported oil.
Shenhua Group, the world's top coal producer and parent of Shenhua Energy Co Ltd, expects to start up a major plant using its own coal liquefaction technology in Inner Mongolia this year.
The plant will be the biggest outside of South Africa and is expected to convert 3.5 million tonnes of coal per year into 1 million tonnes of oil products, such as diesel for cars.
Coal-to-liquid technology is seen as a chance to reduce dependency on oil, but the process also releases carbon gases into the atmosphere and consumes huge amounts of water, raising environmental concerns.
- Reuters