Subject: Chinese Coal-To-Liquids projects - small so far, but... From: "Bill Howell. Hussar. Alberta. Canada" <> Date: Fri, 13 Mar 2020 11:06:28 -0600 To: Stephen "Howell." Gas storage "consultant." SEBIL Consulting Services Cc: I've probably made a conversion error, but if correct, the Chinese coal-to-liquids projects coming on stream may remove close to 5% of the world's largest importer from the market (~20% of world total?).   [464,000 bbl/d, 5%] is not a huge portion, especially when compared to declining Chinese conventional production, world oil production, US shale, and Chinese oil demand growth.   But Chinese scientists are world leaders in CO2-climate debunking, advanced control theory, CTL technology, and good control over internal nut cases, so maybe we'll see much more activity coming into Chinese plans? A bigger issue might be whether Saudi Arabia (ripe for revolution for a couple of generations) is destabilized by Russia.  After losing out in [Vietnam, Afghanistan, Egypt, Libya, Iraq, Iran, etc, etc], and with long-term problems with competitiveness and re-balancing of world power, the US might not be in a good position to do much in Saudi Arabia, but my guess is that they would probably feel obliged to do something. Of course, this is VERY expensive oil.  Sasol estimates 67-92 $/bbl on average for CTL, but that may be too high for China, and it may be almost irrelevant for strategic-military reasons.  Water availability is a big issue for the plants, which are in dry regions. Bill  ********* 11Mar2020 Chinese coal-to-liquids and current oil price crash 2015 report : 16 plants, 22 Mt/y +[built, under construction, in advanced planning] Ratio : (22,000 bbl/d) / (1 Mg coal/y) ~$67-82 a barrel to produce CTL fuel (figures from SASOL) 2015 Chinese guidelines (3.7 Mg/y coal) / (Mg oil/y), prioritize use of low-quality coals Until 2012, China only had one coal-to-liquids plant with an annual output of over 1 million tons. Yankuang                 Mg oil/y                           G$ construction cost Built: Shanxi          1      2009?    startup      Shenhua         4      2016     startup      6.33     Ningxia, Inner Mongolia   Yankuang        1      2015     startup      3.2      Yulin, Yitai           1      ?2012?   startup Planned, construction : Botswana       ??      ?2030?   construct   4         Botswana Shenhua        +7      2020     expansion             Ningxia, Inner Mongolia   China CTL now   7      now                              154,000 bbl/d China CTL plan 22      ?2026?   (built+const+plan)      464,000 bbl/d      Howell : not enough for WWIII China import*          2018                           9,261,000 bbl/d         China prodn            2017                           3,850,000 bbl/d World prodn            2019                          80,622,000 bbl/d * 2018   8,400,000 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_imports   2018 ~11,000,000 https://www.forbes.com/sites/judeclemente/2019/10/17/china-is-the-worlds-largest-oil--gas-importer/#236166235441 Botswana   = Botswana Oil (BOL), state-owned Shanxi     = Shanxi Jincheng Anthracite Coal Mining Group, state owned Shenhua    = Shenhua Ningxia Coal Industry Group, a subsidiary of China’s biggest coal producer, the Shenhua Group. Yankuang   = Yankuang Group, China's coal giant Yitai      = Inner Mongolia Yitai Coal, privately owned +-----+ https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/china/crude-oil-imports 2018 9,261 bbl/d Chinese cride oil imports (mistake! - should be 9,261,000 bbl/d) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_imports 2018 8,400,000 bbl/d https://www.forbes.com/sites/judeclemente/2019/10/17/china-is-the-worlds-largest-oil--gas-importer/#236166235441 China Is The World’s Largest Oil & Gas Importer Jude Clemente, Oct 17, 2019,07:05pm EST graph shows ~11,000,000 bbl/d in 2018