The twenty four Indian
companies that had applied for allocation of captive blocks for converting
coal-to-liquid (CTL) fuels have got common technology partners. These twenty
four Indian companies have tied up with eight foreign companies.
Some of the companies
that have tied with foreign technology partners are -
-
Tata Sons who
has entered into an equal-stake JV with South Africa's Sasol for
establishing a facility to produce oil and oil products such as petrol,
diesel, naphtha, LPG, jet fuel, and others.
-
Reliance Industries
has teamed up the based Headwaters Energy Services, US for a similar project.
-
Among others, Anil
Ambani controlled Reliance Infrastructure has tied up with another US-based
firm Rentech Inc, while Reliance Power has found a partner in the United
State's Syntroleum Corporation.
-
Vedanta Resources
Plc has come together with the German company Uhde GmbH.
Rentech has also
agreed to provide technology for the project to five other companies, including
the Adani Enterprises. Syntroleum, on the other hand, will also be the
technology partner in a consortium led by an Indiabulls group company. Other
foreign companies involved are Germany's Lurgi GmbH with GMR group led
consortium, Canada's Baard Energy, LLC with Videocon Industries promoted Vista
Natural Resources, and Germany's Choren Industries GmbH.
The ministry of coal
had invited applications for allocating captive blocks for putting up CTL
projects at an estimated investment of $6-8 billion (approx Rs.27,600 - 36,800 crore ) each.
Three blocks are identified with combined reserves of over six billion tonnes of
coal in Orissa, even as the government intends to allow only one project to mine
up to 1.5 billion tonnes of the fossil to make oil on a pilot basis. The
government expects a 1.5 billion tonnes coal block to enable mining operations
of 28-31 mln tpa of run-of-mine coal for 30 years, in turn producing about 3.5
mln tpa of oil and oil products.