Inpex collaborates on lower-cost GTL technology

Inpex Holdings Inc. and five other Japanese companies are collaborating to develop gas-to-liquids technology, aiming to cut plant building costs and enabling them to beat GTL front-runners Royal Dutch Shell plc and Sasol Ltd. The Japanese companies will build a demonstration plant and develop gas-to-liquids capability by the end of the five years ending March 2011, they said in a statement yesterday. The partners want to make the technology to build commercial plants available in 2012. The partners, including Japan Petroleum Exploration Co., Cosmo Oil Co., Nippon Steel Engineering Co., and Chiyoda Corp., are investing ¥12 billion (US$100.11 million) in the project. Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corp, a state-run energy researcher known as JOGMEC, is providing ¥24 billion (US$200.22 million), or about two-thirds of the costs including outlays to build the demonstration plant. Inpex is studying the possibility of building a GTL plant tapping Indonesias deepwater Abadi Structure in the Masela Block in the Timor Sea. Inpex’s Managing Director Kunio Kanamori said that the GTL technology that will be developed may be used by any of the six Japanese companies to build plants overseas, using natural gas from fields where the companies hold stakes. (October 5, 2006)