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.