Qatar LNG to Holland?

Dutch Minister of Economic Affairs, Maria van der Hoeven, said in Qatar, “We are interested in Qatari gas. After the completion of our regasification terminal in a few years, we will be able to receive LNG from Qatar.”There are three proposed Dutch terminals currently, Eemshaven, GATE, and Lion-Gas Terminal, each of which is anticipated to come online in the next five years. The most advanced terminal, the $1.1 billion GATE terminal being developed by Gasunie, Vopak, andE.ON, is nearing the construction phase currently. The terminal developers reached a final investment decision back in December 2007. Van der Hoeven also noted Holland’s interest in spot cargoes: “[w]e would like to welcome LNG tankers from Qatar to Rotterdam. LNG would enable us to diversify and buy gas from new suppliers like Qatar. Besides, it would also give an impulse to the development of a spot market.”

DOE aims to store CO2 and recover CH4 simultaneously

The US Department of Energy and its Southwest Regional Partnership recently began to inject carbon dioxide into a large coalbed while recovering natural gas, DOE's Fossil Energy Office announced on last month. It is said that the planned injection of CO2 in a sic month demonstration near Navajo City, NM, differs from other enhanced CBM recovery projects because it will attempt to maximize permanent storage of the CO2 in a process called geologic carbon sequestration using process known as enhanced coal-bed methane recovery.

 

Many coalbeds in the United States are saturated with natural gas (methane), but the gas is difficult to produce because methane typically binds to coal. However, CO2 shares the same tendency and injecting it into the coalbed essentially displaces the methane and makes the gas easier to produce.

Favorable geology, high methane content, available CO2 from nearby power plants, low capital and operating costs, and well-developed natural gas and CO2 pipelines made the San Juan Basin, which is considered one of the top-ranked basins worldwide for CBM, a prime candidate for value-added CO2 sequestration. Due to the tendency of coal to swell when in contact with CO2, high initial coal permeability is required to maintain CO2 injection rates (high injectivity) over time. 

2008 Nobel Chemistry Awards

2008 Nobel Price in Chemistry goes to Osamu Shimomura, Roger Tsien and Martin Chalfie for the discovery and the development of the green flourescent protein "GFP".