China’s Shenhua Energy Co Ltd recently announced that will begin construction on a CTL plant in October 2010. (Earlier post.) The plant will be jointly developed with South Africa-based Sasol, the world’s largest CTL company.

The plant will be located in the northern area of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, with an expected price tag of $7 billion. The project is ultimately expected to convert approximately 3 million tons of coal annually to produce an output of 80,000 barrels of oil products daily.

The plant is part of Shenhua’s reported plans to spend $58 billion over the next 10 years developing coal liquefaction facilities. Recently Shenhua announced that it plans to conduct a second test production run at its already completed Erdos project in Inner Mongolia. This 1,000 hour test follows a successful trial run held earlier this year.

Canadian developer NuCoal recently announced that it expects a CTL plant to be operating in southern Saskatchewan within the next few years. In a presentation at its annual general meeting, NuCoal President Alan Cruickshank said that coal-to-liquids with a gasoline product via the ExxonMobil process (earlier post) was one of the three monetization strategies for the company. NuCoal is also exploring in situ (underground) gasification.

NuCoal’s CTL operations model mimics a Shenhua trial plant, and is targeting a modular plant design. Each module is to produce 50,000 barrels per day. One tonne of coal will produce approximately two barrels (84 gallons US) of gasoline.

NuCoal is targeting a phase 1 production rate of 150,000 bpd, with CO₂ managed as one of the byproducts of production, with likely application in enhanced oil recovery (EOR). Cruickshank said one of the most important business opportunities for such a CTL plant lies in shipping it via pipeline to the United States.

The company is currently engaged in establishing its agreements with large stakeholders, technology providers and partners, and proceeding with a variety of scoping studies.