The licence revolves around the compact reformer vessel technology developed by the Davy John Brown group which was bought by Kvaerner during the mid 1990's. Following Kvaerner's well publicised financial troubles and subsequent restructure, the technologies and patents were sold back into the rebadged Davy Process Technology group.
The other commonly used methanol production process - developed by German-based Lurgi - uses oxygen or enriched air which poses a serious safety case concern for offshore operators. The reliability of the process is also an issue with a large number of plant 'trips' or shutdowns caused by oxygen supply problems.
According to MEO managing director, Chris Hart, the Davy technology can convert just under 90% of CO2 found in a gas stream into methanol, the greenhouse implications of which have raised significant interest in political and environmental circles.
It is understood Methanex - whose last three plants in Chile were built using the Davy process - are negotiating between the Lurgi and Davy technologies for their proposed Burrup plant. The Methanol Australia deal has the possible implications of ringfencing Methanex into using the Lurgi technology or inviting MEO in as a participant if they wish to use the Davy technology.
However Methanex chief Bruce Aitken said from New Zealand today the Methanol Australia licence plans would not affect the Taranaki methanol plants, nor its planned plant at the Burrup Peninsula, Western Australia.
"Methanol Australia has no methanol production right now and, although they are planning a Timor Sea facility, we see them as no threat to our Asia-Pacific operations," said Aitken.
Methanex plants in New Zealand use ICI's low-pressure steam reformer technology and the Motunui plant was presently trialling the next generation of ICI technology, which is likely to be used in the WA plant.
Late in 2000 Methanex and ICI subsidiary Synetix announced the construction of a $US7.5 million, 700-tonne-per-day synthesis pilot plant in Taranaki to test the new "syngas" process, which Aitken said was likely to be used in any second generation Methanex plants built around the world.
On the other hand, Hart said that 75% of the world scale methanol plants in the world were built using the Davy process. "This technology is the most efficient for the specific production of methanol," he said.
"One of the advantages is that the vessels are cascaded and nested together, meaning we can shutdown individual modules without taking the whole plant off line. Not having an enriched oxygen environment is also a great advantage."
The other issue raised by MEO's licencing deal is that it can use the process to leverage into projects with CO2 concerns - the prime examples on the current Australian landscape being the Gorgon and Yolla developments.
Hart said the Yolla field was too far progressed in design to be a prospect for their CO2 stripping approach but when asked by EnergyReview.net about the Gorgon project with its 12% CO2 content, Hart implied there had been discussions on the subject but would not be drawn into any further comment.
The Gorgon partners, led by ChevronTexaco, are faced with the problem of how to dispose of the vast amounts of CO2 which need to be stripped from the wellstream before the sweetened gas is piped ashore in a large trunkline. Leaving CO2 in the gas flow would cause severe corrosion on the pipeline over time. Releasing CO2 into the atmosphere is a practice most definitely frowned upon by regulatory authorities.
The viability of the Gorgon project has received more attention recently by being earmarked as the only possible uncommitted gas reserves available to supply the proposed SasolChevron synthetic diesel plant which is planned for the Burrup Peninsula.
