MOSCOW (MRC) -- Latin America’s largest petrochemical maker, agreed to help Siluria Technologies Inc. bring to market a novel process for making ethylene from methane, the largest component of natural gas. said Bloomberg.
Siluria is building a demonstration plant at Braskem’s site in La Porte, Texas, to show how oxidative coupling of methane, or OCM, can produce ethylene, the most used petrochemical and a key ingredient in plastics, the companies said today in a statement. The USD15 million factory should open in the fourth quarter, Siluria Chief Executive Officer Ed Dineen said.
"This technology is on the leading edge of developments in our industry and is well designed to meet our needs for plentiful, affordable feedstock," Fernando Musa, CEO of Sao Paulo-based Braskem’s U.S. unit, said in the statement.
Siluria’s OCM process costs USD1 billion a year less than average costs at naphtha crackers that produce ethylene and USD250 million cheaper than ethane cracking, based on feedstock costs since 2010, Dineen said in a phone interview. At the heart of the OCM technology are proprietary catalysts that turn methane and oxygen directly into ethylene and water without the high heat used in crackers.
"The use of natural gas as a direct feedstock has been a goal of the chemical-fuel industry for a long time," Dineen said.
The technology works in existing ethylene plants and also can be added to gas processing plants, which separate methane from natural gas liquids, to turn unprocessed gas into gasoline, Dineen said. The technology would help gas processors and pipeline companies produce a higher value product, particularly when ethane or methane prices are low, he said.
As MRC wrote before, Siluria has successfully raised USD 30 million in a round led by Russia-based Bright Capital and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen's Vulcan Capital. Besides, existing venture capital investors like Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, also contributed.