Syntroleum to support Catalytica in natural gas conversion project

Catalytica Advanced Technologies and Syntroleum Corporation announced that Syntroleum has agreed to provide funding in support of a Catalytica Advanced Technologies research project aimed at developing an advanced process for the direct conversion of natural gas to liquid fuels such as methanol and gasoline.
Catalytica Advanced Technologies is developing a new class of catalysts for the direct oxidation of methane into methanol or other liquid hydrocarbons - a process which could be complementary to and potentially less expensive than some current Fischer-Tropsch technologies.
In March, 1997, Catalytica received a $ 2 million, 3-year grant for its methane conversion project from the Advanced Technology Program of the U.S. Department of Commerce. That funding will be supplemented by Syntroleum funding in each of the next 3 years, subject to Catalytica's meeting mutually established milestones. Contingent upon certain benchmarks, follow-on efforts will include funding by Syntroleum for complete development of the technology through the pilot plant stage. In return, Syntroleum will have exclusive rights to market the technology, for which Catalytica and its original partners will receive royalties. Mitsubishi Oil and Petro-Canada are the original partners which provided funding for the preceding development of this technology.
Mark Agee, president and chief operating officer at Syntroleum, commented that "We believe Catalytica's methane oxidation process shows promise and has long-term potential. If successfully commercialised, Catalytica's process could complement Syntroleum's gas-to-liquids process and provides Syntroleum licensees with additional options for monetising more of their gas reserves."
"We share a strong common interest with Syntroleum in the application of innovative technology to make hydrocarbons more useful and more accessible," said Norman R. Smith, president and CEO of Catalytica Advanced Technologies. "We are looking forward to working together to develop and commercialise our new process for converting natural gas to liquid. This is one of several projects in which Catalytica Advanced Technologies is developing advanced catalytic technology with long-term commercial potential and environmentally sound new products and processes."

Syntroleum Corporation licenses its proprietary process for converting natural gas into synthetic crude oil and transportation fuels. The process can be applied in plant sizes ranging from 2,000 bpd to 50,000 bpd and larger. Licensees of the process include Texaco, Marathon, Arco, YPF and Kerr-McGee.

Catalytica Advanced Technologies applies Catalytica's broad knowledge of catalysis and catalytic systems to generate promising commercial products. In addition to methane conversion, projects are under way in the fields of metallocenes and nanoscale catalysts.