Uzbekistan, Tashkent, Feb. 13 / Trend D.Azizov
Managing director of the South African Sasol Synfuels International, Ed Cameron and officials of National Holding Company (NHC) Uzbekneftegaz mulled in Tashkent the construction of the GTL plant in Uzbekistan, the holding reported on Monday.
The sides noted that project participants should make every effort to speed up work on FEED-2 stage, which envisages detailed design, project financing and development of the feasibility study. The development of active phase of the process is scheduled for the second half of 2012.
Cameron spoke about the priority projects in Uzbekistan for Sasol. They also discussed a program of the next working group meetings.
Uzbekneftegaz, South African Sasol Synfuels International (Pty) Ltd. (Sasol) and Malaysia's Petronas International Corporation Ltd. (Petronas) signed in November 2009 a tripartite investment agreement to design and build a plant to produce synthetic liquid fuels (GTL)-based Shurtan MCC (Kashkadarya) at a preliminary cost of $2.739 billion.
In accordance with the terms of the memorandum of association, joint venture established in the form limited liability company on a parity basis (33.3 percent) with an initial size of the authorized capital of $30 million, which is to be brought to $840 million within the investment period.
The plant is expected to refine 3.5 billion cubic meters of gas and produce 672,000 tons of diesel oil, 278 tons of jet fuel, 361,000 tons of naphtha and 63,000 tons of liquefied gas.
Licensor of technology of production of synthetic liquid fuels (Sasol SPDTM process) within the framework of the project is Sasol Technology (Pty) Ltd.
The raw material for fuel production will be the methane coming from Shurtan of $3.5 billion cubic meters.
Project will be financed through the funds of Petronas, Sasol and Uzbekneftegaz, as well as a consortium of banks and financial institutions providing loans to the joint venture in terms of project funding of up to $ 1.899 billion (70 per cent of the project).
In December 2010, Uzbekneftegaz reported that the estimated capacity of the plant will be increased to 1.468 million tons per year. In June 2011, Petronas decided to reduce its stake in the joint venture Uzbekistan GTL from 33.3 to 11 percent. In September 2011, the share of Malaysian companies in the joint venture is reduced to 11 percent share of Sasol and Uzbekneftegaz is now at 44.5 percent.
Then the partners signed a trilateral investment and project agreement to build a GTL plant. Construction of the plant is scheduled to compete in 2017.
Shurtan was commissioned in 2001. Technology Complex is designed to produce 150 kinds of polyethylene of high, medium and low pressure line.
The design capacity of Shurtan is 125,000 tons of polyethylene per year. The company produces 137 tons of liquefied gas, 130,000 tons of light condensate, and 4.2 billion cubic meters of marketable gas and 4,000 tons of sulfur a year.
Uzbekneftegaz, an exclusive operator of oil and gas industry of Uzbekistan, was established in 1998 and operates six joint stock companies.
Uzbekistan for natural gas production ranks second among CIS countries and among the ten largest producing countries of the world. The country produces over 60 billion cubic meters of natural gas, with a definite part exported.