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Company Background
Gas Technologies LLC (GTL) is an alternative energy company commercializing a single‐step methane to methanol
process. The founder and CEO Walter Breidenstein is a serial entrepreneur, with over 20 years experience in the
oil and gas and renewable energy industries. The co‐inventors Nathan Pawlak and Dr. Robert Carr have worked on
the core chemistry and process with 42 international patents currently filed (10 have already been granted)1.
Technology Viability
The direct homogenous partial oxidation of methane to methanol has been thoroughly
studied and is proven at both laboratory2 and pilot plant scales3. The GasTechno®
process utilizes this unique reaction, recovers the products it produces, and then
recycles unreacted gases back to repeat the process. Since the recycle loop requires no
heating and the reaction does not use a catalyst, this recycling method is very
economical. In fact, GTL has received third‐party scalability validation of the
GasTechno® process for up to 30 million cubic feet of gas per day (mmscfd)4 and the
economics of the process have been independently evaluated to have 50%‐70% capital cost and up to 40% lower
operating cost than competing technologies. It has currently no commercial competitors worldwide for a wide
range of applicable scales5. Table 1 illustrates the competitors and economic comparisons.
Table 1: Comparison of Technologies at 30 MMSCFD Scale6
GasTechno® ICI Methanol Ammonia SynFuel LNG
CAPEX $92 MM $182 MM $218 MM $155 MM $168 MM
OPEX (cash) $30 MM $48 MM $55 MM $45 MM $42 MM
7
Production (MTPA) 330,000 270,000 320,000 130,000 170,000
Current Price (USGC) $344/MT8 $366/MT $450/MT $722/MT $203/MT
Gross Revenue $113 MM $100 MM 145 MM $92 MM $35 MM
Methanol as a Feedstock for Chemical and (Superior) Fuels
Methanol is one of the most important intermediates in the synthesis of clean
fuels and a wide range of petrochemicals. Methanol is the 19th highest
produced organic chemical, but is also a derivative for 17 of the remaining top
209. In other words, if you have methanol you can make just about anything.
As a fuel derivative, methanol is currently being used to make gasoline, DME,
and biodiesel all of which have large global demand. Methanol is also being
used directly in gasoline engines as a fuel additive such as M15, M85, and
M100. Methanol blends make superior fuels, improve combustion, increase
octane, and are one of the cleanest burning fuels available10.
GasTechno Demonstration Plant Opportunity
Gas Technologies has appointed Zeton Inc. (www.zeton.com) to build demonstration scale plants targeting USA,
Brazil, EU, Russia, Nigeria, India, and China customers involved with associated flared gas, stranded natural gas,
coal bed methane, coal mine methane, biogas, biomethane and landfill gas. For any source of gas in the range of
1‐50MMSCFD, there are simply no economic solutions available. The demonstration plant is designed for
1MMSCFD and provides the following product outputs and some common economic measures:
Table 2: Tolerance of Select Components Because the process uses no catalysts, it has a high
Component Up to: Application tolerance for common contaminants that would
Methane 100% All natural gas sources make other processes uneconomical. The
Ethane 100% Refineries & NGL plants GasTechno® process’s ability to process such a
Carbon Dioxide 60% Biogas, landfills, & coal wide range of off‐spec feed gases is unmatched in
seam/bed methane the gas conversion industry. The range of
Nitrogen 15% Stranded gas fields acceptable feed gas quality for select components
Hydrogen Sulfide 5% Sour gas
is estimated as seen to the left (Table 2):
Of equal importance is the ability for the recycle loop design to handle varied inlet flow volumes of gas. In the case
of the 1 mmscfd demonstration plant, the flow rates can range from +/‐ 60% of optimum design capacity. This
means that the plant can accept gas up to 1.6 mmscfd (at a 58% overall carbon efficiency) and down to as low as
0.4 mmscfd (at a 73% overall carbon efficiency). In other words, the same exact GasTechno® plant can operate on
a field in decline even with a 75% turn down ratio without ever needing to swap out trains.
Future Commercial GasTechno® Projects
Commercial plants will be significantly cheaper on a per ton basis and will offer more complex configurations than
are being offered with the demonstration plants. For instance, add‐on technologies that convert methanol to
DME, gasoline, and fertilizers can be engineered into the same commercial project. Since methanol is so versatile,
and our low CAPEX is unmatched, there’s a wide range of options for the owner/operator of the GasTechno®
process. The most common use for methanol is, conveniently, to produce formaldehyde which is used to make a
number of products such as resins used in plastics and construction materials. The same 30MMSCFD plant that
produces 330,000 metric tons of product per annum could be used to make nearly 23,000,000 gallons of gasoline
annually at an estimated price of $1.65 per gallon, in addition to the formalin and ethanol output/derivatives.
1
All patents and patent applications are available upon request.
2
Zhang, et al. 2003. Recent Progress in Direct Partial Oxidation of Methane to Methanol. Journal of Natural Gas Chemistry 12:81‐89.
3
Simchenko, et al. 2001. Oxidation of Natural Gas to Methanol in a Cyclic Mode. Theoretical Foundations of Chem. Eng. 35‐2:209‐211.
4
Ken Battle Services for Gas Technologies LLC, Scale‐up Study of Direct Methane to Methanol Process, Feb 12, 2010.
5
According to a report by PFC Energy in 2009, 80% of all flares have no technical solutions for flare reduction. Of this number, about 75% fall
within the economic range of the GasTechno® process.
6
All values are according to a study conducted by Nexant ChemSystems in 2006 with revenues updated for current prices.
7
Includes 160,000 metric tons of methanol, 150,000 metric tons of formalin, and 16,000 metric tons of ethanol.
8
In addition to methanol pricing, this value takes into account formalin and ethanol pricing as well.
9
Dr. William F. Carroll, Jr., “Where Everything Comes From: Industrial Chemistry 101”, presented at Ouachita Baptist University, Feb 12, 2007.