amelius I like your enthusiasm but I think its just a little too...

amelius I like your enthusiasm but I think its just a little too optomistic. Firstly - its going to take a few years just to delineate the CBM resource and get a bankable feasibility study completed. Then further to this another 3 years min for construction of the plant(depending on the size and construction sequence) so, I definitely can't see them producing any GTL products in a 3-5 year timeframe.

As an example of the complexities of this, from memory (dont quote me) Shell's Pearl GTL facility in Qatar undertook 2 stages of construction starting Feb 2007 for a 140k bpd facility. Phase 1 producing 70,000 bpd and stage 2 producing 140,000 bpd. It's still currently incomplete, due for completion in 2010 and the costs have spirralled out of control from an original estimate of c.$5 billion to $16 billion, and has not been producing as well as it should due to technical difficulties.

Exxon is another example as they scrapped their plans for a 154k bpd plant due to massive cost blowouts (ie $7 billion - $18 billion).

So the GTL plant idea is still ULTRA high risk for CTP and will bring about many challenges for the them. They will rely heavily on a major or another substantial investment partner to get them up and running, and even these majors are demonstrating the technical and cost difficulties larget GTL facilities pose.

That being said - there are numerous successful GTL facilities running efficiently around the globe (ie shells Malaysian Bintulu plant, Sasol - the pioneering GTL player with Mossel Bay et al). Other companies have even found commercial success by downsizing their plants as the larger ones were too difficult and expensive to maintain.

Either way its a much longer range strategy which requires alot of fundamental information to pass first - and then after this is verified the challenges of getting a plant up and running will then pose the biggest hurdle the company will face. It can be done, but its not walk in a park.