The opportunities and challenges of the coal-to-natural gas industry

Supply exceeds supply is the basic supply and demand pattern of natural gas in China, and domestic natural gas production cannot meet the rapidly increasing consumption. Every year, China imports large amounts of natural gas from abroad. Therefore, using China's abundant coal resources and actively developing coal-based natural gas can increase the output of domestic natural gas and play a significant role in maintaining China's energy security, energy conservation and emission reduction.

Coal natural gas is used as a substitute and supplement to LPG and natural gas to achieve a new approach to clean energy production, optimize the coal deep processing industry structure, enrich the coal chemical product chain, and have high energy utilization characteristics, in line with domestic and foreign coal processing Use the direction of development.

China's development of coal gas has an inherent advantage, that is, China's abundant coal resources. China's coal proved reserves ranks third in the world, accounting for more than 12% of the world's proven total coal reserves. Such a wealth of coal reserves provides sufficient raw materials for the development of coal gas projects in China.

From the point of view of technical equipment, except for the individual equipment in the methanation plant that needs to be introduced, other technologies and equipment are localized. This will help reduce procurement and construction costs and reduce the constraints imposed on people.

At present, the price of coal in the same thermal unit is lower than that of oil and natural gas, and the cost of producing coal-based gas has the advantage of cost. If China produces low-quality coal (brown coal) with abundant reserves and lower prices as raw materials, the cost will be lower. Moreover, the thermal value of coal-fired natural gas is generally higher than that of natural gas. In the production of coal gas, it can also bring tar, naphtha, phenol, * yellow and other by-products, thereby increasing the added value of the product, you can get greater benefits.

In addition, coal-to-natural gas can be easily transported over long distances through pipelines, which further expands the scope of site selection. Therefore, coal-based natural gas projects can be built in remote areas such as the eastern part of Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, where transportation is inconvenient, but coal reserves are abundant and prices are low.

Therefore, in the long run, the prospects of the coal-to-gas industry are very bright.

However, in the development of coal gas projects, various factors still need to be considered comprehensively. Field research should be conducted to comprehensively consider resources, construction costs, transportation costs, and labor costs. Do a good feasibility study and carefully analyze them. Do not blindly start the project.