Turkmenistan on Friday opened a $1.7 billion gas-to-liquids plant in the town of Ovadan-Depe outside the capital Ashgabat.
President of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, together with the members of the Japanese delegation, cut the symbolic ribbon and got acquainted with the enterprise.
In the administrative center of the plant, the Head of State and high-ranking Japanese guests were shown a video film demonstrating the plant’s specific nature and the production process. The executive of the plant told about the technological chain of gas-to-liquid fuel conversion.
At the new plant, gas-to-gasoline method is applied at the industrial level for the first time in world practice. The project is based on TIGAS technology (Topsoe Improved Gasoline Synthesis) developed by the Danish company Haldor Topsоe. All processes are automated and integrated into a central system.
In an installation to improve the quality of gasoline, methane and ethane are emitted from its composition at the first stage, and liquefied gas at the second stage. At the third stage, the gasoline is divided into light and heavy fractions. Separated light gasoline is sent to two tanks with a volume of 850 cubic meters. At the fourth stage, heavy gasoline is supplied to two plants to improve the quality of fuel, where the level of durol decreases. Subsequently, it is sent to two tanks with a volume of 230 cubic meters. Upon flow of the light and heavy gasoline from four tanks, the fuel is mixed, resulting in commercial gasoline.
In the production of light and heavy gasoline in special installations, diesel fuel is cleared of sulfur.
Synthetic fuel produced by the plant has ideal environmental characteristics - there will be neither sulfur compounds nor nitrogen-containing organic compounds harmful to the environment. The main product of the plant - gasoline ECO-93 is stored in three tanks with a volume of 18,000 cubic meters, where, in order to ensure its quality, special pumping equipment is constantly functioning.
Liquefied gas, which is a by-product, is stored in a spherical tank with a volume of 2000 cubic meters, and sweet diesel fuel is stored in a tank with a volume of 360 cubic meters.
All tanks are provided with proper firefighting equipment.
There are complexes for loading gasoline into railway tanks and onto motor vehicles, as well as for loading off-grade gasoline, sweet diesel and liquefied gas onto motor vehicles.
The plant will process 1.785 billion cubic metres of natural gas annually, producing 600,000 tonnes of gasoline a year among other liquid fuels.
