ChevronTexaco Worldwide Power and Sinopec Corp. announce agreement on technology license

22-Oct-2002

ChevronTexaco Worldwide Power and gasification and China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation (Sinopec) announced that ChevronTexaco proprietary gasification technology has been licensed for use at the Sinopec naphtha steam reformer plant in Jinling, China.

Revamping the Jinling plant with ChevronTexaco's gasification technology will allow the plant to replace its current naphtha feedstock with lower cost petroleum coke and coal feedstock. In addition to these cost savings, retrofitting the plant with gasification technology will generate significant environmental benefits. The gasification process converts the feedstocks to a clean gaseous mixture called synthesis gas or "syngas," which is similar to the syngas currently produced by the existing naphtha reformer, but gasification does so with significantly less air emissions than a naphtha reformer. This syngas is then used to produce ammonia and urea for use as fertilizer, plus hydrogen for use in an adjacent Sinopec refinery.

The project schedule calls for basic design to start this year for a planned start-up and commercial operation in 2005.

When completed, the new gasification facility at Jinling will generate sufficient synthesis gas to produce 300,000 metric tons/year of ammonia, plus 30,000 metric tons/year of hydrogen.

Change in the worldwide oil market in the past several years has presented fertilizer plants which use naphtha or residual oil as feedstock with increasing cost challenge. In order to change this situation, where a fertilizer plant which uses naphtha or residual oil as feedstock operates at a loss, Sinopec will revamp the fertilizer plant by replacing the current naphtha or residual oil with lower cost petroleum coke and coal feedstock. This agreement between Sinopec and ChevronTexaco will be the first such application of ChevronTexaco's coal gasification technology in Sinopec.

Since 1978, ChevronTexaco's proprietary gasification technology has been chosen for sixteen projects in China, each producing syngas for fertilizer or chemical production, and doing so with both economic and environmental benefits as compared to alternative technologies. Eleven of these licensed gasification plants are currently in operation, with five more in engineering or under construction.

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