The President of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdymuhamedov met today CEO and President of the Danish company Haldor Topsoe met today Bjerne S. Clausen. He handed over to the Turkmen leader the certificates on awarding the GTG plant, inaugurated in the Akhal province in June 2019, the prestigious international award “2019 IChemE” by the Institution of Chemical Engineers (Great Britain). The award has been confered for the advancing the TIGAS technology (synthesis of gasoline), reports the news portal ORIENT refering to Turkmen governmen sources.
Moreover, the project of the GTG plant — the world’s first for the production of synthetic environmentally friendly gasoline – was awarded by the Danish Energy Industries Federation for “green” indicators: minimization of carbon dioxide emissions, absence of sulfur, harmful metals and compliance with strict requirements for the content of aromatic and olefin hydrocarbons in the final product.
It was at the plant built in Turkmenistan that the TIGAS technology of Haldor Topsoe was first introduced into industrial production, which became a real breakthrough in the global fuel industry. While the whole world is alarming on the ecological catastrophe and climate change, arranging crowded demonstrations and high events, a real step towards the future has been mde near Ashgabat with the commissioning of GTG plant.
This important step was the development of the production of gasoline from natural gas, which has exceptional environmental characteristics, aimed at the complete rejection of hydrocarbons. The need for such a waiver is declared on many levels, but what does it mean today? In fact, it is a “rollback” in the progress, since the global energy is tied to these very hydrocarbons.
Ranking 4th in terms of natural gas reserves, Turkmenistan has taken the path of greening these resources. How to make fossil fuels “green”? It is necessary to process them in green way by innovative technologies. Since Berdymuhamedov raised the issue, the country has launched a overall upgrade of the fuel and energy sector and its reorientation from raw materials exports to the production of finished products with high added value.
The main “order” for these products became the requirements for its environmental standards. The President of Turkmenistan focused the oil and gas industry on science as a source of advanced developments. The pragmatism of the Turkmen leader’s view on the future of the country’s energy sector is that science and production, which is entirely based on the processing of domestic resources, jointly should address the challenges of the global market. That is, to ensure compliance with the changing demand, and substantial income.
An absolutely adequate and, most importantly, practical approach to solving national tasks against the backdrop of such global issues as adaptation to climate change, environmental risks and threats, energy security and, finally, the fourth industrial revolution, that is, the total transition of the industry to cybersystems.
Digitalization has been laid down as the main development direction into the GTG plant project, which was realized with the participation of the Japanese company Kawasaki. The technology of converting gas into gasoline, developed by Haldor Topsoe, involves high-tech production with automatic control, and in the future a full-scale robotization.
In general, this gas chemical complex is designed for the production of 600,000 tons of synthetic gasoline of the EU-93 brand, corresponding to the EURO-5 standard, as well as 115,000 tons of liquefied gas and 12,000 tons of desulfurized diesel fuel per annum. The processing capacity will amount to 1.785 billion cubic meters of natural gas.
The GTG plant entered the Guinness Book of World Records as “the world’s first natural gas gasoline plant”, awarded the “Environmentally friendly” certificate by the US environmental Protection Agency and the “Innovative technologies” certificate by the Swiss Federal Institute of technology. The implementation of this unprecedented project became an important milestone in the development of the national economy, and on the other hand, it is a real investment in the infrastructure of the entire Eurasia.
Environment-friendly gasoline ECO-93 enjoys good demand in both domestic and foreign markets. To date, the GTG plant has produced over 74,500 tons of ECO-93 gasoline, including 48,800 tons exported to European countries.
And this is still only the initial phase of the plant’s spinup to the full capacity. There are also plans for the second phase…
By the end of December 2019, the State Concern “Turkmengaz” will submit a preliminary report on the engineering analysis of the project for the construction of a new plant for the production of gasoline from gas (GTG plant). The Japanese business circles, including major financial institutions such as the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) and the Investment Insurance Agency (NEXI), are showing great interest in this project.
Source: ORIENT