Siluria unveils new commercial technology to make liquid fuels from gas

Siluria Technologies has unveiled a first-of-its-kind development unit for producing liquid fuels from natural gas, based on Siluria's proprietary oxidative coupling of methane (OCM) and ethylene-to-liquid (ETL) technologies. 

The announcement was made during a ceremony this week at Siluria's new facility in Hayward, California, which began operations in November 2013.

"The successful scale-up of a commercially-ready process for producing fuels from natural gas represents another key milestone in our strategy," said Siluria CEO Ed Dineen. "We have already demonstrated how our technology can be employed to produce gasoline, an achievement that paves the way for first commercial facilities producing liquid fuels in the 2017 timeframe."

Attending the ribbon cutting ceremony was US Congressman Eric Swalwell of California's 15th District, Hayward Mayor Michael Sweeney and other local officials. 

"Siluria Technologies is performing innovative work to enable the production of cleaner transportation fuels by taking advantage of our nation's abundant natural gas and renewable methane," said Congressman Swalwell. "This is exciting technology that can help create jobs, bolster our energy independence and benefit the environment and American consumers."

Siluria's OCM and ETL technologies form a process for transforming methane -- the principle ingredient in natural gas and renewable methane -- into gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and other liquid fuels. Unlike many of the high-temperature, high-pressure cracking processes used to produce fuels and chemicals, Siluria's process employs catalytic processes to create longer-chain, higher-value materials, thereby lowering operating costs and capital.

At commercial scale, Siluria's process will enable refiners and fuel manufacturers to produce transportation fuels that cost considerably less than modern petroleum-based fuels, while reducing overall emissions of NOx, sulfur and particulate matter, according to the company. Siluria adds that fuels made with its processes are also compatible with existing vehicles, pipelines and other infrastructure and can be integrated into global supply chains.

Earlier this year, Siluria announced that it will build an OCM demonstration plant at Braskem's site in La Porte, Texas. Braskem is one of the leading producers of ethylene and plastics in the Americas. Siluria and Braskem have also entered into a relationship to explore commercialization of this technology. The OCM demonstration plant will begin operations later this year.

Siluria says its Hayward ETL facility and the La Porte OCM demonstration plant are the last scale-up steps prior to full commercialization of Siluria's technology platform.

Siluria notes that it plans to deploy its technology in a range of commercial settings, including existing ethylene producing plants, at ethylene consuming sites, upstream gas monetization, natural gas midstream plants, as well as world-scale deployments.