Australia is currently about 85% petroleum self sufficient, but this is expected to drop to 45% by 2010. Each 1% fall represents a loss of $100 million in Australia's Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Professor David Trimm, a Gas-to-Liquids research leader with CSIRO's Petroleum Division, and his team are developing new and novel technologies for the exploitation of Australia's stranded gas reserves and others across the world.

Gas to Liquid (GTL) technologies have the attraction of producing sulphur free fuel, and could make a major contribution to clean air in our cities. A focus on gas would place Australia in a strong position to develop as part of the future global hydrogen economy.

GTL is a two step process and CSIRO Petroleum is investigating both steps to generate alternatives to current GTL processing methods.

The first step is the production of synthesis gas or 'syngas' (a mixture of CO and H2). The CSIRO team is investigating ways to increase gas throughput per unit size of plant equipment. This involves reactor and catalytic material redesign and operation at high pressures. Being able to condense plant equipment by using new syngas production techniques will enable exploitation of what are now considered to be non-commercial gas fields.

New catalysts are being developed for the second step of the process - Fischer-Tropsch synthesis - which involves turning syngas into liquid fuels. The catalysts being developed should give greater yields of desired liquid products and will also provide revenue from patent royalties.

GTL is considered to be useful complementary technology for Liquified Natural Gas (LNG), ammonia production and flared gas from oil reserves.

CSIRO's research is considering initiatives in the area of coal bed methane and the production and processing of gas close to markets on Australia's east coast. The vast majority of Australia's 115 Tcf of gas reserves, however, lie offshore in areas where it is uneconomic or difficult to transport via a pipeline. This means developing floating facilities or anchored concrete structures, producing a product that can be easily transported by tanker.
The objective is to investigate new and existing processes by which natural gas in remote fields, far removed from major processing facilities, can be converted to more easily transportable liquid fuels and chemicals.

Professor Trimm said that the current focus was on the development of technologies for the conversion of Australia's abundant gas to transport fuels, particularly synthetic diesel. This is a 'clean' alternative, containing no sulphur and therefore producing no sulphur dioxide on combustion.
"The product needs to be easily transportable to the market which demands processes that involve minimal external infrastructure, minimal size and minimal cost", he said. "At the same time it is essential to maximise environmental protection for air, land and water."

His team's work has already led to several patent applications for Gas to Liquids (GTL) technologies with the potential to generate considerable income for CSIRO and Australia. CSIRO has committed around $5 million to further research in this area over the next five years. However, this could jump to over $50 million if WA ERA (an alliance between CSIRO, Curtin University and University of WA) can bring its plans to fruition. CSIRO is also hopeful that a MOU with ChevronTexaco will lead to a significant research effort in hydrogen production.

Worldwide there is a considerable amount of GTL research, but Professor Trimm believes Australia is in an ideal position to establish itself in a niche market - by developing processes and plant that can be taken offshore (on floating facilities) to where there are huge reserves of 'stranded gas', that are too expensive to bring ashore.

Among his careers highlights, Professor Trimm cites: "helping to bring the first car exhaust catalyst on line and working with it ever since" and "working with industry to sort out a major coking problem that was giving hell in steam reforming".

"For the immediate future, and probably for the next 25 years, diesel powered hybrid motor vehicles will be the likely preferred option to petrol driven transport", he said. "We will soon be very short on liquid transport fuels and the conversion of Australia's large reserves of natural gas to diesel or gasoline is an obvious solution. Even a 1% improvement in Australia's liquid fuel self sufficiency will deliver about $1 billion in economic benefits to the nation. We are aiming for a 20% improvement."

Percentage costs of the various GTL processes