The liquefaction of coal is once again at the heart of strategic thinking about energy supplies. In South Africa, 30% of the fuels consumed are produced from coal. The US Air Force has just finished flight tests on a B-52 using similarly produced fuel and will have tested its entire fleet by the end of 2011. The China University of Petroleum has just launched a module in CTL, and China’s leading coal producer (China Shenhua) will start up its first CTL unit in 2008 with a capacity of 20,000 bbl/d. In strategic terms, CTL contributes to reducing the energy dependence of countries with large coal reserves and little oil. It will enable mining companies to become more profitable and allow petroleum companies to diversify their supplies.

The World Coal-to-Liquids (CTL) conference in Paris, April 3-4, will start with a presentation by Gerald Doucet, Secretary General, World Energy Council (UK) on Worldwide supply and demand in energy, notably fossil fuels; medium term outlook. The conference will then move into: Session 1: ENERGY SUPPLY AND DEMAND (2010-2030):

STAKES FOR NATIONS AND INDUSTRIES – Chair: Fatih Birol, Chief Economist, International Energy Agency (France) Opening remarks

Opportunities for coal and CTL: reserves, illustration with competitiveness approach – Milton Catelin, Chief Executive, World Coal Institute (UK)

Conclusions of IEA’s Coal Survey 2007 – Brian Ricketts, Energy Analyst, Coal, International Energy Agency (France)

India: country case and projects – Prem Sawhney, Senior Vice President, Reliance Industries Ltd (India)

USA: country case and US Air Force policy – The Honorable William C. Anderson, Assistant Secretary of the US Air Force, Installations, Environment & Logistics (USA)

China: country case and Shenhua projects – Zhang Yuzhuo, Chairman, China Shenhua Coal Liquefaction Co. (China)

CTL as a stakeholder for downstream industries – Panel with representatives of the automobile and aeronautics industries

CTL AVAILABLE ROUTES – THE COAL AND OIL INDUSTRIES PANEL – Chair: Jim Smitham, Deputy Director, Energy Transformed, CSIRO (Australia)

Introduction to the two main CTL routes

Indirect CTL

– Christiane Schmid, Director of Business Development, Siemens Fuel Gasification Technology (Germany)

– Merrick Kerr, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Rentech (USA)

– Jannie Scholtz, Manager of Technology and Business Development, Sasol Synfuels International (South Africa)

– Samuel Tabak, Licensing Executive, ExxonMobil (USA)

Direct CTL

– John Duddy, Technology Manager, Axens North America, Axens Group (France)

– Theo Lee, Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Headwaters (USA)

– Sadao Wasaka, Executive Director, NEDO (Japan)

The first day ends with a Coal and Oil Industries Panel, with Roger Wicks, Head of Energy, Anglo American (UK),  Frederick Palmer, Senior Vice President, Peabody Energy (USA) and Alfred Seema, CTL Business Development Manager, PetroSA (South Africa)

Friday, April 4, begins with ENVIRONMENT

Greenhouse effect, CO2 capture & sequestration, synthetic fuel benefits, R&D – Chair: Hanspeter Rohner, Vice President Europe and Australia, Schlumberger Carbon Services (France)

Greenhouse effect, CO2 contribution to the global warming – Barbara McKee, Head of Fossil Fuels Collaboration, Department of Energy (USA)

CO2 capture, storage – Pierre Le Thiez, Executive Vice President, Geogreen (France)

Well to wheels approach: principle and application in several cases – Richard Boardman, Senior Lead, Coal-To-Liquids Research and Development, Idaho National Laboratory (USA)

Quality of synthetic fuels, an improvement for the environment – Justyn Peters, General Manager, Government and environmental Affairs, Linc Energy (Australia)

Great Plains (US) / Weiburn (Canada) carbon dioxide operation with efficient CO2 industrial use – George Pan, Oil & Gas partnership Manager, EnCana (Canada)

Reducing CO2 emissions in CTL : Putting theory into practice – Diane Hildebrandt, Director of the Centre of Material and Process Synthesis (COMPS), University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa)

ASSOCIATED INDUSTRIES

Financing: approach of the financial risk on CTL – Christiane Bergevin, President, SNC-Lavalin Capital (Canada)

Engineering: the specifics of CTL – Takuya Ono, Chief Engineer, Engineering Division, JGC Yokohama (Japan)

Industrial gases – Nicolas Perrin, M arketing & Business Director, World Energy Conversion Market, Air Liquide (France)

Coal-To-Chemicals, focus on Coal-To-DME – Huang Zhen, Director of The Energy Research Institute, Shanghai Jiao Tong University (China)

Biomass-To-Liquids – Matthias Rudloff, Business Development Manager, Choren (Germany)

The event will finish with the presentation of the 2008 World CTL Award to Dr Sadao Wasaka, Executive Director, NEDO (Japan) by Yves Chauvin, 2005 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Wasaka is recognised for his scientific work in CTL processes and his contribution in NEDO’s international cooperations.

Wasaka is an Executive Director of the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) and is in charge of the development of clean coal technology such as coal gasification, coal beneficiation or coal liquefaction. He started his career with Mitsui Mining Co in 1976, and since then he has been actively engaged in the development of clean coal technologies. In particular, he has devoted over 30 years to the development of direct coal liquefaction. After joining NEDO in 1995, he contributed to the development of the NEDOL Process, an advanced direct coal liquefaction process developed exclusively in Japan. He received a doctorate degree in engineering from Kansai University in 2004 based on his research related to coal liquefaction and the NEDOL Process.

The World CTL Award is granted to an eminent personality who has contributed substantially to the understanding and development of CTL.

CONCLUSION AND KEYNOTE ADDRESS – Olivier Appert, President of IFP (France).

Attendees will include experts from sectors that are end-users of petroleum products, such as the petrochemical, automotive and aerospace industries, as well as CTL suppliers, including the engineering sector, financial entities and catalyst suppliers. The World CTL 2008 conference will also present the production of chemical products from coal (coal to chemicals) and the use of biomass as a raw material (biomass to liquids). Alongside the conference, there will be an exhibition.

At World CTL 2008, the technical, economic and environmental performances of the CTL processes will be presented by the leading businesses in each of the two production methods – indirect and direct.

 During World CTL 2008, a round table with senior managers of mining and petroleum groups will put the respective strategies of these two industries into perspective. In environmental terms, coal, because of its chemical nature, can emit a high level of carbon dioxide, as compared to other energy sources. This issue will be discussed during World CTL 2008. Researchers and manufacturers will present pilot solutions, as well as those that have already been industrialised. They will demonstrate the environmental advantages of CTL-produced fuels, known as synthetic fuels, in relation to conventional fuels.

The economic issues related to CTL are important. Profitability will be affected by various factors – variations in coal and oil prices, the uncertain duration of fiscal policies and incentives, the cost of environment-related measures, and the reduced guarantees that licensers and engineering companies will be able to give.

The World CTL conference will be held at the Méridien Montparnasse Hotel in Paris (France), April 3 to 4, 2008. For further information, please go to: www.world-CTL2008.com