A company proposing a gas-to-liquids solution for Alaska North Slope stranded gas has opened an Anchorage office.
Alaskan Natural Gas to Liquids Co.'s office is at 310 K St., Ste. 200, phone 907 264-6709, e-mail [email protected], the company said in a Jan. 26 statement.
Dick Peterson, company president, told PNA that the project began some two and a half years ago with research into a commercial gas-to-liquids process.
What he found, Peterson said, was that the only commercial GTL process in the world was the slurry phase distillate process used by Sasol in South Africa. Sasol, he said, has produced 3.1 billion gallons with the process and provides more than 40 percent of South Africa's gas, diesel and kerosene needs.
Alaskan Natural Gas to Liquids' proposal involves a 50,000 barrel per day GTL plant at Prudhoe Bay using the Sasol process. Peterson said the plant would use approximately 500 million cubic feet a day of North Slope gas and produce 40,000 barrels per day of environmentally superior diesel which could be marketed on the West Coast and 10,000 barrels per day of the finest petrochemical grade naphtha which could be marketed to the Far East.
Peterson said that Alaskan Natural Gas to Liquids has an agreement with Sasol that brings Sasol's slurry phase distillate process to Alaska for the project.
The plan would ship diesel and naphtha produced at Prudhoe Bay in batches through the trans-Alaska pipeline, Peterson said. In addition to providing sales for North Slope gas, he said, those shipments would also help keep the trans-Alaska pipeline flowing, allowing more oil to be produced from Alaska's North Slope.
The U.S. Department of the Interior Bureau of Land Management has released details for the proposed lease sale in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.
A notice of sale will be published in the Federal Register 30 days prior to the sale date, which BLM officials told PNA was expected to be the first week or two of May. The proposed notice allowed the agency to get out information on the process and the tracts.
For area A, considered to have better prospects for oil, the tract size will be one-quarter of a township, approximately 5,760 acres; the minimum bid will be $25 an acre; fixed royalty rate will be 16.67 percent; rental will be $5 an acre. Area A is the northeast portion of the sale area abutting Harrison Bay and the Colville River in the north and west.
For area B, tract size will be one-half a township, approximately 11,520 acres; minimum bid will be $5 an acre; royalty rate will be 12.5 percent; rental rate will be $3 an acre.
Acreage is approximate. The agency will calculate actual acreage only for tracts receiving acceptable high bids.
A location for bid opening has not yet been set.
