China Industry Body Questions Shell’s Coal to Liquids Technology

18 July 2009

Shanghai Daily. The China Petroleum and Chemical Industry Association (CPCIA) is proposing limiting any further purchases of Shell’s coal gasification technology following problems at half of the plants using the technology.

Of 23 units now running, CPCIA said that 12 units in operation in 11 companies, including Sinopec, have been troubled by unsteady performance.

Chinese firms have acquired 19 technology licenses from Shell since 2001 in their bid for a share of the growing market for the clean utilization of coal, which powers around three quarters of the world’s third-largest economy. Coal gasification has yet to be widely adopted on a commercial scale....Shell (China) Ltd denied there were flaws in its technology.

An unnamed official with China’s National Energy Administration was quoted as saying in the report that the association had proposed restrictions on technology imports. “The government should step up controls, restricting the repeated use of Shell’s immature technology and encourage domestic firms and research institutes to strengthen adoption and innovation of imported technologies,” the association said in the report.