Waller Marine, Inc. of Houston has been selected as part of the Project Team for the initial Feasibility Study of the $5b Geismer, La., Clean Coal to Liquid Fuels Project, recently announced by the Governor of Louisiana, Kathleen Blanco and the Leaders of Shanyang Borough of Shanghai City, China.
Acclaimed as the World’s first Coal to Gasoline Project Waller Marine, Inc, will provide the marine engineering and management support to the modular design concept developed by the Company for the facility’s construction, transportation and installation at the designated operating site in Geismer, Louisiana. The initial work shall be carried out under a Feasibility Study Service Agreement between Sino Global International, LLC, of the US with Sinopec Ningbo Engineering Company and Sinopec International Co., Ltd (jointly) of China. Sinopec Ningbo Engineering Company will conduct the Feasibility Study, with technological support from GE Energy USA, LLC, Haldor Topsoe, Inc, ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Company, AMEC Paragon, Inc, AON Environmental and
SNC Lavalin, GDS, Inc.
The project will use lignite mined in North Louisiana as the feedstock that will be fed to multiple General Electric gasifiers to produce synthesis gas and thence through methanol synthesis and a methanol to gasoline process using technology and know-how provided by Haldor Topsoe and ExxonMobil.
The integration of the various processes into structural barge modules will be provided by WMI. Each module will form a fully documented barge complete with its particular process components, designed in accordance with and approved by the American Bureau of Shipping. An estimated 30 such barge modules will be required to complete the facility.
Barge mounted modules will be constructed, outfitted and tested at a specially built facility at Jinshan, China. Upon completion and testing at Jinshan, the modules will be dry towed to the Mississippi River at Geismer, where they will be returned to the water and transferred across the levee by a specially designed and constructed drydock/bridge system provided by WMI. The Geismer site will have been prepared to receive the barge modules, where they will be installed on land based foundations and their systems reconnected. The barges shall remain as documented marine vessels throughout their operational life.
The completed facility will gasify some 20 million tons of coal per year and produce 100,000 barrels per day of gasoline and by-products such as Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), Ethanol, 1,000,000 gallons per day of AA Chemical Grade methanol, 3 million tons per year of sulfuric acid and steam and electricity to adjacent facilities. The Project incorporates a unique “Counter Trade” arrangement for its value added products, which will be in part exported to the People’s Republic of China in specially designed Integrated Tug Barge units designed by WMI.
The concept of integrating traditionally land based process facilities into modular marine vessels for floating and land based installations is not new to WMI, having designed the world’s largest
floating power plant, barge mounted Gas to Liquids (GTL) facilities,
floating LNG storage and regasification facilities and the world’s largest floating gas to methanol plant.