China Guodian Corporation said Friday it has started construction of 4 billion cubic meter/year coal-to-gas plant in Nileke county in China's northwestern Xinjiang province.
The plant will be constructed in two phases by the company's subsidiary, Nileke Energy & Chemical Engineering, at a cost of Yuan 26.8 billion ($4.12 billion).
The first phase of project is expected to come online in December 2015 with annual gas production of 2 billion cu m. The second phase is scheduled to be completed in 2017.
All the gas from the plant will be fed into the main network of China's West-to-East gas pipeline for domestic consumption. The 30 billion cu m/year pipeline runs from Huo'erguosi in Xinjiang province to Shaoguan in southeastern Guangdong province.
China Guodian said it plans to eventually lift the capacity of the plant to 10 billion cu m/year by 2020.
Nileke Energy & Chemical Engineering has also started work on a Yuan 6.3 billion coal mining project in Nileke county that will supply the coal-to-gas plant with feedstock, China Guodian said.
The first phase of the coal project is expected to be completed by the end of 2012 and have annual production of 10 million mt of coal. The second phase will be completed at the end of 2017, adding another 6 million mt of annual output.
The company's 48.8 sq km coalfield in Nikele county has estimated coal reserves of 2.26 billion mt.
