Envidity Energy Inc6907 Lefroy Court SW, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

The Envidity team is passionate about providing alternative sources of cleaner, cheaper transportation fuels - Envidity brings to the table more than 200 years of combined and progressively more challenging oil and gas industry experience. Collectively the team is associated with the discovering and proving up more than 1 billion barrels of oil equivalent of reserves. The team has also been involved in all aspects of the value chain from upstream through to downstream: exploration to development; commercial negotiations through to business process improvements / change management; small/mid-capitalization companies through majors and large integrated national oil companies, and domestic and international operations. The team has developed and implemented significant major projects, e.g. Kuwait Oil Company’s 2020 strategy, $26 billion investment to double their production to 4 million barrels of oil per day.  In early 2010 the team came together with the objective of investigating the greatest opportunities in the field of energy anywhere on the globe. The review determined that coal still provides the most abundant and cheapest opportunities and that UCG/GTL provides the best commercial advantages for generating cleaner sources of synthetic transportation fuels and inexpensive and clean electricity. A world-class advisory panel was established, composed of leading researchers, who validated the findings, methods and processes proposed. Through its excellent networks, Envidity is currently working on opportunities in North America, Eastern Europe and Asia. The Team has also created an array of established technologies geared uniquely for the opportunity at hand. We believe that our projects will be a game changer to transportation fuel products throughout the world.

The energy dilemma 

Conventional crude oil is a finite resource and most of the world’s super giant fields were discovered prior to the mid 1970’s. Although demand for crude oil has reached in excess of 31 billion barrels per year (85 million barrels per day - “bpd”), the discovery rate for new large fields has declined and the gap is growing between “discovery and production”. Although the EIA in 2009 has not predicted peak oil, for the first time ever they have shown a graph where liquid fuel supplies decline after 2012 unless a series of “unidentified projects” deliver.

Solution

There are not that many current solutions for the transportation fuel dilemma. Driving less and driving smaller, lighter more fuel efficient vehicles is only part of the short term solution.  The world also needs to develop alternative new resources where there is significant reserve potential but in a clean manner. For example, existing minable coal reserves in the USA can provide 275 years of production at current consumption rates. Sasol in South Africa currently produces 160,000 bpd of synthetic fuel from “coal” and all of the planes that departed South Africa at the end of the World Cup flew on synthetic jet fuel.  UCG focuses on “stranded” coal (too deep to mine) and coupling UCG with Fischer Tropsch gas to liquids (GTL) technology has the ability to increase coal reserves by 17 fold. Since CO2 is sequestered in the process, UCG/GTL generates a “clean, stable and secure source” of transportation fuels. Synthetic fuel is clear; it has fewer emissions, a higher cetane value, is biodegradable and is compatible with existing fuel infrastructure and engines.  UCG refers to the process in which coal reacts in situ with an oxidant to produce a combustible gas, called synthesis gas or syngas. In contrast to surface coal gasification (SCG), no coal mining needs to take place and hence UCG has the potential to access unmineable coal. UCG/GTL technology is in its 4th generation of development.

Advantages

• Capital costs of UCG are substantially lower than an equivalent traditional coal mining/gasification facility (25% – 30% less). Operating costs are also much lower as there is no need for coal mining, transport and ash management fees. Minimal exploration and delineation costs. Commercial project IRRs of 30%-60+%, depending on scale.
• Surface and underground mining have only tapped approximately 10% of the coal resources. Through UCG a significant portion of this untapped energy resource can be cleanly transformed into synthetic gas for electricity and synthetic fuels feedstock.
• UCG-GTL synthetic gas and synthetic fuels are inherently cleaner than crude oil derived product, and are biodegradable.
• Useful life of a plant is 40-60 years. The coal resource base in many of the UCG locations could sustain a UCG operation for 100+ years.
• A resource of no value is quickly turned into a resource of great value, creating energy diversity.
• The concept is scalable; addition facilities can readily take a UCG/GTL to 100,000 barrels per day of cleaner synthetic transportation fuels.