Zeus Development would like to thank all participants.

Introduction

Gasification technologies are expanding at a faster pace worldwide and are being used at a much greater rate than ever before. Long-term higher oil and gas prices caused by tight capacity and skyrocketing demand, the increasing requirement for power generation and clean transportation fuels, the movement to capture and sequester CO2 emissions and the tremendous interest in the incentives from the US Energy Policy Act of 2005 are factors that have combined to drive this global demand.

Large-scale gasification projects to generate power and produce liquids are moving ahead in China, India, Nigeria, Qatar and the US and are being considered in Australia, Egypt, Algeria, Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia and the Philippines. Those countries with large coal deposits are investing in coal-to-liquids and IGCC technologies to significantly reduce oil imports. Coal-derived synthetic natural gas is being seen as the best way to supplement waning and ever more expensive supplies of US natural gas.

Gasification of refinery bottoms such as asphaltenes and petroleum coke to produce hydrogen for hydrotreaters and energy for steam generation boilers and cogeneration plants is dramatically lower the operating costs in the Canadian oilsands upgrader projects as expensive and increasingly scarce supplies of natural gas are being replaced or supplemented in the production of synthetic crude oil.