"The Company" magazine (#39, dated October 16, 2014) published an article "Will INFRA Technology revolutionise the oil market." The article describes the history and key milestones in the development of the innovative GTL (gas-to-liquids) technology by the Russian company INFRA Technology.
Currently, INFRA has already invested tens of millions of dollars. Russian scientists working for the company created a fundamentally new catalyst technology and developed its applications. Its key features include: compactness, higher productivity, and most importantly - a single monoproduct - premium quality oil. INFRA has built two pilot testing facilities in Moscow, on the cards - construction of the pilot plant in the United States.
Plants for synthetic fuel production, designed on the basis of existing technologies require huge investments. For that reason INFRA took completely different direction: they plan to produce modular units, designed as "Lego", which can be assembled and disassembled, depending on the needs of the oil company for a particular field. These modules are designed so that they can be transported in standard shipping containers and delivered easily to almost any location in the world. However, in order to commercialize a new technology, it is necessary to test it on an industrial scale. That's why INFRA has designed and will soon start building a plant in Texas (USA). The capacity of the new plant is small - about 100 barrels of oil per day, cost - $10-15 million. Mass production should make the units cheaper. The cost of one unit will be around $7-8 million. Operating costs of producing synthetic oil from associated gas at such facilities will be approximately $20 per barrel, provided that the associated gas is free - it is still being burned anyway.
The full text of this article can be read on http://ko.ru/articles/25804