Energy 109 (2016) 201e210

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Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/energy

Modeling and techno-economic analysis of shale-to-liquid

and coal-to-liquid fuels processes
Huairong Zhou, Siyu Yang, Honghua Xiao, Qingchun Yang, Yu Qian, Li Gao*
School of Chemical Engineering, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510640, PR China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: To alleviate the conflict between oil supply and demand, Chinese government has accelerated explora-
Received 25 February 2016 tion and exploitation of alternative oil productions. STL (Shale-to-liquid) processes and CTL (coal-to-
Received in revised form liquid) processes are promising choices to supply oil. However, few analyses have been made on their
16 April 2016
energy efficiency and economic performance. This paper conducts a detailed analysis of a STL process
Accepted 27 April 2016
and a CTL process based on mathematical modeling and simulation.
Analysis shows that low efficiency of the STL process is due to low oil yield of the Fushun-type
retorting technology. For the CTL process, the utility system provides near to 34% energy consumption
Keywords:
Techno-economic analysis
of the total. This is because that CTL technologies are in early development and no heat integration
Shale-to-liquid between units is implemented. Economic analysis reveals that the total capital investment of the CTL
Coal-to-liquid process is higher than that of the STL process. The production cost of the CTL process is right on the same
Heat network level as that of the STL process.
For better techno-economic performance, it is suggested to develop a new retorting technology of high
oil yield for the STL process. The remaining retorting gas should be converted to hydrogen and then used
for shale oil hydrogenation. For the CTL process, developing an appropriate heat network is an efficient
way to apply heat integration. In addition, the CTL process is intended to be integrated with hydrogen
rich gas to adjust H2/CO for better resource utilization.
© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction 75.1%, 15.2%, and 2.8%, respectively. Chinese government enforced

Consumptions of gasoline and diesel in China kept increasing, as
shown in Fig. 1 [15]. The average increasing rate for gasoline was
8.8% and that for diesel was 8.3% in the years from 2004 to 2014.
Liquid fuels production depends to a great extent on petroleum
consumption. According to the energy reserve in China, more than
half of oil consumption is imported from abroad. For example, oil
production was 210 Mt, while the apparent consumption was
518 Mt in 2014. It is clear that 60% oil was imported [20] and this
number will increase to 75% till 2030 [2]. The continuous growth of
oil consumption requires development of alternative energy
resources.
The energy reserve in China is marked by richness in coal, while
scarcity in oil and gas. National Bureau of Statistics [22] investi-
gated the energy production from coal, oil, and natural gas and
found their percentages of total national energy production at
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: celigao@scut.edu.cn (L. Gao).
the policy to promote exploration and exploitation of unconven-
tional oil productions [23]. Depending on statistics, extractable
amount of shale oil is 47.6
109 t, double of China's oil reserve
[12,14]. By 2014, the total oil production capacity of STL (shale-to-
liquid) plants was 1.0 Mt/y. These plants are mainly built in
Liaoning, Jilin, and Shandong provinces. The largest STL plant was
built by Fushun Mineral Co., Ltd. with the capacity of 0.37 Mt/y
(0.06 Mt/y gasoline and 0.31 Mt/y diesel) [24]. It is predicted that
the capacity will increase to 3.0 Mt/y by 2018 [8].
Depending on the report by Ref. [3], the proven reserves of coal
in China were 114.5
109 t, accounting for 13.3% of the world total.
In a long time, coal will be the dominant energy resource in the
country. CTL (Coal-to-liquid) technologies are important to relieve
the shortage of oil [13]. In 2014, capacity of the biggest CTL plant
reached 1.0 Mt/y oil, including 0.25 Mt/y gasoline and 0.75 Mt/y
diesel. The capacity will grow continuously and quickly to a ca-
pacity of 20 Mt/y by 2020 [33].
Development of STL technologies and CTL technologies gives a
feasible way to mitigate the shortage of oil supply. However, there

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2016.04.108
0360-5442/© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
202 H. Zhou et al. / Energy 109 (2016) 201e210
Fig. 1. Consumptions of gasoline and diesel in China.
are limited studies on their techno-economic performance. This
paper models and simulates a STL process and a CTL process. Based
on simulation, techno-economic analysis is made to explain their
performance and give suggestions for future development of these
technologies.
2. Process modeling and simulation
A STL process and a CTL process are utilized to analyze with the
capacities of 0.37 Mt/y oil and 1.0 Mt/y oil. These two processes are
modeled based on practical industrial processes. Aspen Plus soft-
ware (version 7.2) is used for modeling and simulation. For analysis
of the two processes, we use an OTL (oil-to-liquid) process as the
base case. It is built by PetroChina Yunnan Petrochemical with the
scale of 10 Mt/y oil [5].
2.1. Shale-to-liquid process
The flow diagram of the STL process is illustrated in Fig. 2. After
grinding and screening, oil shale particles with the diameter from
10 to 75 mm are fed into the retort and converted into semi-coke
and oil-gas mixture at 0.1 MPa and 525  C. The oil-gas mixture is
subsequently separated into retorting gas and shale oil by the
washing tower, the indirect cooling tower, and the electrostatic
tower. Most of the retorting gas is heated by burning a part of it and
recycled back to the retort. Shale oil is mixed with hydrogen. The
Fig. 2. Flow diagram of the STL process.
mixing stream is heated by the furnace and then sent to the hy-
drogenation reactor. The products from the hydrogenation reactor
are sent into the HP (high-pressure) separator to separate gaseous
and liquid phases. Most of the gas is recycled back, while the liquid
is refined in the fractionation tower to gasoline and diesel. Residual
oil from the bottom of the fractionation tower is mixed with
hydrogen and fed into the hydrocracking reactor, in which high
molecular hydrocarbons are cracked into small molecular
hydrocarbons.
A STL process mainly includes an OSR (oil shale retorting) unit
and a SOH (shale oil hydrogenation) unit. The key operational
parameters for the simulation are given in Table A in Appendix.
Details of the modeling and simulation of the OSR unit will be
undertook in the following section.
Oil shale retorting technologies comprise of gas-heat-carrier
technologies and solid-heat-carrier technologies. A number of
retorting technologies of gas-heat-carrier have been commercial-
ized in China. The representative is Fushun-type retorting tech-
nology. Its production capacity occupies 85% of all oil production
[24]. Thus, this paper uses Fushun-type retorting technology as
the study case. For the simulation, the oil shale with 7% oil content
in Fushun, Liaoning, China is selected with its proximate and
elementary analyses in Table 1, where M, FC, V, and A respectively
denote the moisture, fixed carbon, volatiles, and ash; ar denotes as-
received basis of shale.
Composition of the oil shale is complex. In order to facilitate the
simulation, oil shale is defined as the mixture of water, minerals,
and kerogen. These components can be modeled as MIXED, SOLID,
and NC in Aspen Plus. RK-SOAVE is chosen as the property method.
The Fushun-type retort includes a drying, a retorting, and a gasi-
fication stages from top to bottom. In the drying stage, oil shale
particles are preheated to 180  C for drying. In the retorting stage,
the kerogen is retorted to shale oil, retorting gas, and semi-coke at
the temperature ranging from 180  C to 525  C. In the gasification
stage, the reactions are combustion and gasification of semi-coke,
aiming to produce hot gas at 850  C to supply heat for the
decomposition.
Modeling of the Fushun-type retort is illustrated as Fig. 3a. The
corresponding program in Aspen Plus is shown as Fig. 3b. The
Table 1
Proximate and elementary analyses of oil shale in Fushun, China.
Proximate analysis (wt.%, ar) Elementary analysis (wt.%, ar)
M FC V A C H O N S
Oil shale 5.00 3.69 18.56 72.79 79.07 9.93 7.02 2.12 1.86
 H. Zhou et al. / Energy 109 (2016) 201e210 203

Fig. 3. Aspen Plus simulation calculation procedure (a) and Aspen Plus models of retort (b).

calculation procedure is carried for drying, retorting, and gasifica- drying stage. Its temperature is 180  C and pressure is 0.1 MPa. We
tion stages sequentially. Firstly, the dehydration reaction of oil shale assume that the total surface and internal moisture of the shale
particles is occurred in the drying stage, as formulated in Eq. (1). particles is removed in the drying stage. According to Eq. (2), a piece
of internal FORTRAN codes are utilized to control the RYield reactor.
Oil shale (wet) / w H2O þ Oil shale (dry) (1) In addition, a Sep block is adopted to separate water from the dried
shale by specifying split fractions. Its temperature is 180  C and
According to mass balance, the vaporization moisture content pressure is 0.1 MPa.
mH2O is calculated by Eq. (2). After drying, the shale particles are sent to the retorting stage.
We assume that only kerogen takes part in the pyrolysis reaction, as
mH2O ¼ mshale, in
Mshale, in  mshale, out
Mshale, out (2) follows:

where mshale, in and mshale, out denote the shale content before and Kerogen / H2 þ H2O þ H2S þ NH3 þ CO þ CO2 þ CH4 þ
after drying; Mshale, in and Mshale, out denote the moisture content of C2H6 þ C3H8 þ C4H10 þ Oil þ Semi-coke (3)
shale before and after drying. A RYield block is utilized to model the
204 H. Zhou et al. / Energy 109 (2016) 201e210

The kinetic equation of the pyrolysis is referred to the work [29], Table 2
as follows: Comparison between simulation and industrial data of the OSR unit.

Mole fractiona (%)

dx
¼ kð1  xÞn
dt
where x is the extent of conversion; t is the time; k is the specific
rate constant and n is the order of reaction. According to the
Arrhenius equation, the reaction constant k is formulated as [9]:
Ea
k¼ Ae =RT
where A is the apparent frequency factor; Ea is the apparent acti-
vation energy and R is the gas constant (R ¼ 8.314 J/(mol K)). Ac-
cording to Qian et al. [25], Ea is set to 219.41 KJ/mol, A to 2.81
1013,
and n to 1.0. The kinetic equation of the retorting reaction is as
follows:


dx Ea
¼ kð1  xÞn ¼ A exp  ð1  xÞn
dt RT
26390=
¼ 2:81
1013 e T ð1  xÞ
A RCSTR block is used for modeling of the retorting stage. The
pressure and heat duty of the RCSTR reactor are set to 0.1 MPa and
0. In addition, reactor volume is set to 35 m3 and vapor phase
volume fraction to 0.6. Based on the kinetic equation Eq. (6), a piece
of external FORTRAN subroutines are utilized to calculate the yields
of shale oil, retorting gas, and semi-coke.
The semi-coke from the retorting stage is fed into the gasifica-
tion stage. The gasification reactions, as Eqs. (7)e(9) and the
combustion reactions, as Eqs. (10)e(12) occur at the same time.
C þ CO2 /2CO DH ¼ þ172 kJ=mol
C þ H2 O/CO þ H2 DH ¼ þ131 kJ=mol
C þ 2H2 O/CO2 þ 2H2 DH ¼ þ90 kJ=mol
C þ O2 /CO2 DH ¼ 393 kJ=mol (10)
C þ 0:5O2 /CO DH ¼ 110 kJ=mol (11)
CO þ 0:5O2 /CO2 DH ¼ 338 kJ=mol (12)
A RGibbs block is utilized to model the gasification stage by
using minimizing Gibbs free energy. Its temperature is 850  C and
pressure is 0.1 MPa. In addition, a Sep block is adopted to separate
hot gas from ash by specifying split fractions. The hot gas then goes
into the retorting stage to supply heat.
The oil-gas mixture out of the retort is subsequently fed into the
washing tower, the indirect cooling tower, and the electrostatic
tower to separate oil and gas. In this paper, three RadFrac blocks in
series are used to model the washing tower. The number of the tray
of each RadFrac is set to 60. Additionally, the pressure drop is set to
0. Each RadFrac has the same mass flow rate of the washing water,
which is equal to 439.6 t/h. The indirect cooling tower is modeled
by a Heater block and a Flash block. According to the research of
Qian et al. [25]; the electrostatic tower can obtain 6% oil of the total.
Thus, a Sep block is adopted to model the electrostatic tower by
specifying split fractions. The simulation of the OSR unit is shown in
Table 2. The simulated composition of the OSR unit is close to the
industrial composition.
A shale oil hydrogenation technology includes a hydrocracking
and hydrogenation part, a hydrogenation and catalytic cracking
(4) N2 O2 H2 CO CO2 CH4 CnHmb
Simulation data 54.94 0.41 11.92 4.42 20.77 6.73 0.81
Industrial datac 54.91 0.40 11.90 4.43 20.84 6.77 0.75
a
Ignore the components with the fraction less than 1 PPM, such as H2S and NH3.
b
CnHm includes C2H4, C2H6, C3H8 and C4H10.
c
[25].
(5)
part, a coking and hydrogenation part. Fushun Mineral Co., Ltd.
applied the hydrocracking and hydrogenation technology and built
an industrialized plant with the processing capacity of 0.4 Mt/y oil
[40]. This technology is thus chosen as the study case of the SOH
unit. A RYield block is applied to simulate shale oil hydrogenation
reaction at 380  C and 0.1 MPa. The yields of gasoline and diesel are
set to 16% and 81% based on the work [40]. Detailed modeling and
simulation of the SOH unit are referred to our previous works
(6) [26,39].
2.2. Coal-to-liquid process
The CTL process can use coal pyrolysis technology, direct coal
liquefaction technology, and indirect coal liquefaction technology
(FischereTropsch (FeT) synthesis). Compared to the first two
technologies, indirect coal liquefaction technology is characterized
as high conversion and high adaptability of coal [41]. This tech-
nology contains low temperature FeT synthesis and high temper-
ature FeT synthesis methods. The former is mainly used for liquid
fuels production, while the latter for olefins production [28]. This
(7) paper choses the low temperature FeT synthesis method as the
study case.
(8) The flow diagram of the CTL process is shown in Fig. 4. After
crushing and screening, solid coal is mixed with water to produce
coal slurry with mass fraction 65%. The coal slurry is mixed with
(9)
95% oxygen and fed into the gasifier to produce crude syngas. The
crude syngas from the gasifier is cooled in the radiant cooler and
the convection condenser. The cooled syngas is then fed into the
WGS (water gas shift) reactor to produce sufficient amount of H2.
Rectisol method is selected to remove CO2 and H2S from the shifted
syngas in the AGR (acid gas removal) unit. The clean syngas enters
the slurry bed reactor to synthesize oil. The oil is sent to the hy-
drocracking reactor where ring-opening hydrogenation reactions
occur. The reaction product from the bottom of the hydrocracking
reactor is refined to gasoline and diesel in the fractionation tower.
The CTL process mainly includes three sub-processes, CG (coal
gasification), FTS (FeT synthesis), and OH (oil hydrogenation). The
key operational parameters for simulation are shown in Table B in
Appendix. Following section is the detailed modeling and simula-
tion of the CG unit.
In this paper, Texaco gasification technology is adopted as the
study case. Shenmu coal is used as feedstock with the proximate
and elementary analyses shown in Table 3. Coal is defined as un-
conventional solid and can be modeled as MIXCINC in Aspen Plus.
PENG-ROB is selected as the property method. Coal gasifier consists
of a drying, a pyrolysis, and a gasification and combustion stages
from top to bottom. In the drying stage, coal is dehydrated by
preheated to 200  C. In the pyrolysis stage, coal is converted at
500  C into carbon, hydrogen, etc. In the gasification and com-
bustion stage, the main reaction is carbon gasification and
combustion.
The coal particles are firstly fed into the drying stage. The drying
reaction is shown in Eq. (13).
 H. Zhou et al. / Energy 109 (2016) 201e210 205

Fig. 4. Flow diagram of the CTL process.

Table 3 reactions, as Eqs. (16)e(18) and homogeneous reactions, as Eqs.

Proximate and elementary analyses of coal in Shenmu, China. (19)e(21). The rate expression and the constant of each reaction are
Proximate analysis (wt. %, ar) Elementary analysis (wt. %, ar) listed in Table 4.
M FC V A C H O N S
C þ H2 O/CO þ H2 DH ¼ þ131 kJ=mol (16)
Coal 7.29 53.02 35.42 4.27 75.75 4.79 11.95 1.10 0.38

C þ H2 /CH4 DH ¼ 75 kJ=mol (17)

Coal (wet) / Ф H2O þ Coal (dry) (13)
Eq. (14) is the calculation of vaporization moisture content
based on mass balance.
mH2O ¼ mcoal, in
Mcoal, in  mcoal, out
Mcoal, out (14)
where mcoal, in and mcoal, out denote the coal content before and after
drying; Mcoal, in and Mcoal, out denote the moisture content of coal
before and after drying. A RYield model is adopted to simulate
dehydration of the coal particles. The reaction temperature and
pressure are set to 200  C and 0.1 MPa. The RYield reactor is
controlled by a piece of FORTRAN codes.The dried coal is sent to the
pyrolysis stage in which coal is converted into carbon, hydrogen,
oxygen, sulfur, nitrogen, and ash. The decomposition is as follows:
Coal / C(S) þ H2 þ O2 þ SeS þ N2 þ Ash (15)
A Rstoic model is used to simulate the pyrolysis reaction. Its
temperature is 500  C and pressure is 0.1 MPa. The conversion rate
of coal is set to 0.95. The yield of each product is calculated by using
internal FORTRAN code, subjected to element balance.
The carbon from the pyrolysis stage is fed into the gasification
and combustion stage. The main reactions include heterogeneous
C þ CO2 /2CO DH ¼ þ172 kJ=mol (18)
CH4 þ H2 O/CO þ 3H2 DH ¼ þ206 kJ=mol (19)
CO þ H2 O/CO2 þ H2 DH ¼ 41 kJ=mol (20)
H2 þ 0:5O2 /H2 O DH ¼ 242 kJ=mol (21)
Ten RCSTR blocks in series are used to model the carbon gasi-
fication and combustion processes. The operational pressure of
each RCSTR is set to 3.2 MPa. In addition, each RCSTR has the same
volume and vapor phase volume fraction, which are equal to 15 m3
to 0.4. The reaction kinetics are written in an isolated FORTRAN
subroutine to control the RCSTRs. The simulation of the CG unit is
shown in Table 5. It is verified by comparing the industrial data.
The FeT synthesis unit takes slurry phase synthesis process as
the study case. The slurry phase reactor is modeled by a RYield
block. Its temperature is 230  C and pressure is 1.0 MPa. CO con-
version rate is set to 73%. The components of synthetic liquid fuels
are calculated referring to the work of Yates and Satterfield [37].
The yields of gasoline, diesel, and heavy oil are set to 18%, 19%, and
48%, respectively. The oil-gas mixture form the slurry phase reactor
206 H. Zhou et al. / Energy 109 (2016) 201e210

Table 4
Reaction rate and constant expressions for carbon gasification and combustion.

Reaction No. Reaction rate Rate constant

16a *
3000 expð5051=TÞCC ðPH2 O  PH Þ *
PH ¼ PCO PH2 =expð17:29  16330=TÞ
2O 2O

17a expð7:087  5051=TÞCC ðPH2  PH * Þ * ¼ ½P

PH CH4 =expð13:43  10100=TÞ
0:5
2 2

18a * Þ
3000 expð5051=TÞCC ðPCO2  PCO *
PCO 2 =expð20:29  20280=TÞ
¼ PCO
2 2

19b 312 expð30000=1:987TÞ e

20c 2:96
104 $T 2 expð4895=TÞðCCO $CH2 O  CCO2 $CH2 =kwgs Þ kwgs ¼ expð4:3 þ 4577:8=TÞ
21c 8:83
108 expð12003=TÞðCH2 Þ2 ðCCO2 =CCO Þ e
a
[34,1].
b
[35].
c
[31,4].

Table 5
Comparison between simulation and industrial data of the CG unit.

Mole fraction (%)

H2 CO CO2 H2S CH4 N2

Simulation data 36.63 43.57 18.98 0.29 0.01 0.52

Industrial dataa 35.70 44.50 19.00 0.30 trace 0.50
a
[32].

is subsequently separated into oil and gas by the 1st separator, the
2nd separator, and the electrostatic tower. According to Sun [28];
68% oil of the total is obtained by the 1st separator, 24% by the 2nd
separator, and 6% by the electrostatic tower. Thus, three Sep2 blocks
are respectively used to model these separation towers by speci-
fying split fractions.
Oil hydrogenation process developed by Shanghai Yankuang Fig. 5. Energy consumptions and energy efficiencies of the STL, the CTL, and the OTL
processes.
Energy Technology Co., Ltd. is chosen and modeled by a Requil
block at 365  C and 6.4 MPa [28]. In addition, the PSA (pressure
swing adsorption) of the OH unit is modeled by an ADSIM block, increases from 65% to 85%. Using this new retort in the STL process,
assuming 85% separation efficiency [30]. The concentration of H2 is the energy efficiency would increase by 7.5%. For the CTL process,
99.95%. The fractionation tower is modeled by a RadFrac block. The the energy efficiency is equally low. This process suffers from high
modeling and simulation of the WGS unit and the AGR unit are utility consumption, which occupies 34% of the total energy con-
referred to our previous works [36,38]. sumption. Steam consumption is the dominant. It mainly breaks
down to those in acid gas removal, FeT synthesis, and oil hydro-
3. Techno-economic analysis genation units. It is suggested to perform system integration and
optimization to reduce the steam consumption.
3.1. Energy efficiency analysis
3.2. Economic performance analysis
Energy efficiency is the proportion of product energy to total
energy consumption, as formulated in Eq. (22). The product energy Economic analysis adopts 1 GJ fuel as the evaluation base. The
includes energy of gasoline and diesel. The total energy consump- ratio of gasoline to diesel by the STL, the CTL, and the OTL processes
tion is the total energy of raw material, steam, and electricity. are very different. They are 0.16:0.84, 0.25:0.75, and 0.37:0.63,
respectively. In this paper, we use total capital investment and
Energy efficiency ¼ Product energyðGJÞ= production cost as the evaluation indexes.
(22)
Total energy consumptionðGJÞ

The energy efficiencies of the STL, the CTL, and the OTL pro-
cesses are calculated by Eq. (22) and results are shown in Fig. 5.
Detailed data are listed in Table C in Appendix. The energy effi-
ciency of the STL process is low. This process consumes more
feedstock energy. This is mainly because that Fushun-type retorting
process has low utilization rate of oil shale. In addition, some shale
oil is burnt by residual oxygen from the gasification stage of the
retort. In general, producing 1 t fuel consumes 24.5 t oil shale, ac-
counting for 92.3% of the total energy consumption. To enhance the
energy efficiency of the STL process, the most effective way is to
develop new retorting technologies with high oil yield. For
example, Xu and his research team at University of Chinese Acad-
emy of Science developed a new retort with internals [18]. Its uti-
lization rate of oil shale increases from 80% to 100%, and oil yield
3.2.1. Total capital investment
A large budget is necessary for purchase and installation of
equipment. Fixed capital investment is used to buy plant facilities,
while working capital is used to maintain operation. The sum of
fixed capital and working capital is total capital investment. In this
paper, the calculation of equipment investments of the STL and the
CTL processes follows Eq. (23) [11]:

sf
Q2
I2 ¼ I1 (23)
Q1
where I1 and Q1 are the equipment investment and the production
scale of the reference project; I2 and Q2 are the equipment invest-
ment and the production scale of the practical project; sf is the scale
 H. Zhou et al. / Energy 109 (2016) 201e210 207

exponent; sf is the common value of chemical processes and fixed

to 0.6.
The reference scales and the reference equipment investments
of the STL and the CTL processes are listed in Table D in Appendix.
The practical equipment investments of the STL and the CTL pro-
cesses are calculated by Eq. (23). They are 4.19
108 CNY and
37.5
108 CNY with the capacities of 0.37 Mt/y fuel and 1.0 Mt/y
fuel. Other investments of the fixed investment are calculated by
equipment investment multiplied by corresponding factors [17], as
shown in Table 6. Moreover, the working capital is fixed to 20% of
the total capital investment [41]. The calculation of the TCI (total
capital investment) can be formulated by Eq. (24) [21].
 X 
TCI ¼ EI 1 þ RFi (24)

where EI is the equipment investment; RFi is the ratio of other fixed

investment to the equipment investment; i is the components of Fig. 6. Total capital investments of the STL, the CTL, and the OTL processes.

investment.
The total capital investments of the STL process and the CTL [14,36]. A straight-line method is adopted to calculate the depre-
process are 13.41
108 CNY and 120
108 CNY. Their investments ciation cost under the assumption of 15 years lifetime and 4%
for producing 1 GJ fuel are 63.34 CNY/GJ and 207.87 CNY/GJ. The salvage value.
capital investment of the OTL process refers to that of PetroChina
Yunnan Petrochemical Refinery Project [5]. Its investment for PC ¼ CR þ CU þ CO&M þ CD þ CPOC þ CAC þ CDSC (25)
producing 1 GJ fuel is 45.07 CNY/GJ.
The breakdowns of the total capital investments are shown in where CR is the raw materials cost; CU is the utilities cost; CO&M is
Fig. 6. It is observed that the capital investment of the STL process is the operating and maintenance cost; CD is the depreciation cost;
1.4 times of the OTL process's investment. This is explained by the CPOC is the plant overhead cost; CAC is the administrative cost; CDSC
fact that resource utilization of the STL process is much lower than is the distribution and selling cost.
that of the OTL process. STL technologies have not been well The production costs of these processes are calculated on the
developed because oil shale does not obtain sufficient attention as basis of Eq. (25) and shown in Fig. 7. It is seen that the production
much as oil and coal. There are still some problems for STL tech- costs of the STL process and the CTL process are 92.68 CNY/GJ and
nologies, such as low utilization rate of feedstock and low oil yield. 92.32 CNY/GJ. The production cost of the OTL process is 75.25 CNY/
In contrast, OTL technologies are well developed and current scale GJ as oil price is 50 $/bbl, while that is 131.79 CNY/GJ as price is 100
of a single plant exceeds 10 Mt/y. As for the CTL process, its capital $/bbl.
investment is 4.6 times that of the OTL process. This is primarily The production costs of the STL process and the CTL process are
because that the CTL process has a long production chain and re- close. If the oil price is or less than 50 $/bbl, their production costs
quires more equipment investment. are greater than that of the OTL process. In this case, there is not any
economic advantage for these two oil production processes. In
contrast, the breakeven oil price of the two processes is about 70
3.2.2. Production cost $/bbl [24,42]. This economic strength increases and becomes
PC (Production cost) is calculated on the basis of Eq. (25). Pro- obvious as oil price approaches 100 $/bbl.
duction cost mainly includes raw materials cost, utilities cost, and To reduce the production cost, suggestions are proposed in this
others. Some assumptions are made as explained in Table 7 [6]. Raw paper. Feedstock cost of the STL process accounts for 57% of the
materials prices are average prices in 2014. In addition, we make a production cost, followed by utilities cost 21% and operating and
comparative analysis with the situation of 50 $/bbl crude oil. The maintenance cost 13%. It means that saving feedstock cost could
calculation of operating labor cost is referred to our previous work effectively reduce the production cost. The feedstock cost consists
of 60% oil shale and 40% hydrogen cost. Some suggestions are given
as follows: (1) retorting technology should be improved to achieve
Table 6 a high oil yield. For instance, a new retort with internals developed
Ratio factors of capital investment. by Xu and his research team is promising [18]. Oil shale con-
Component RF (%) sumption decreases from 24.5 t to 15 t for 1 t fuel. In consequence,
(1) Direct investment
the raw material cost reduces 23%; (2) remaining retorting gas
(1.1) Equipment 100 should be converted into high-value products, such as methane or
(1.2) Installation 10 hydrogen. Hydrogen can be used in shale oil hydrogenation. In our
(1.3) Piping 15 previous work [39], we proposed an integrated oil shale refinery
(1.4) Instrumentation and controls 15
with retorting gas steam reforming for hydrogen production. This
(1.5) Electrical 10
(1.6) Land 6 new process can save 22% feedstock cost compared to the con-
(1.7) Buildings (including services) 25 ventional oil shale retorting process.
(2) Indirect investment For the CTL process, raw material, utilities, and operating and
(2.1) Engineering and supervision 15
maintenance costs take 40%, 26%, and 18% of the total production
(2.2) Construction 25
(2.3) Contractors fees 20
cost. The main reason for high feedstock cost is due to low
(2.4) Contingency 15 hydrogen to carbon ratio of crude syngas. The required ratio for FeT
(3) Fixed capital 246 synthesis oil is about 2.2 much higher than that in crude syngas.
(4) Working capital 50 Thus, CO is converted into H2 by the water gas shift reaction. This
(5) Total capital 296
causes loss of carbon element. In addition, high utilities cost and
208 H. Zhou et al. / Energy 109 (2016) 201e210

Table 7
Assumptions for production cost calculation.

Component Economic assumption

(1) Raw materials cost Oil shale 60 CNY/t; H2 23,000 CNY/t; Coal 340 CNY/t;
Oil 50 $/bbl and 100 $/bbl.
(2) Utilities cost H2O 2 CNY/t; Electricity 0.5 CNY/kWh;
Steam 42 CNY/GJ
(3) Operating & maintenance
(3.1) Operating labor STL 140 labors, CTL 400 labors, OTL 200 labors,
100,000 CNY/labor/year
(3.2) Direct supervisory & clerical labor 10% of operating labor
(3.3) Maintenance and repairs 2% of fixed capital investment
(3.4) Operating supplies 0.7% of fixed capital investment
(3.5) Laboratory charge 10% of operating labor
(4) Depreciation Life period 15 years; salvage value 4%
(5) Plant overhead cost 5% (3.1 þ 3.2 þ 3.3)
(6) Administrative cost 2% of production cost
(7) Distribution and selling cost 2% of production cost
(8) Production cost (1) þ (2) þ (3) þ (4) þ (5) þ (6) þ (7)

GJ and 92.12 CNY/GJ. Their breakeven oil price is approximated to

70 $/bbl. It is confirmed that development of the STL process and
the CTL process is economically competitive as oil price over 70
$/bbl, and therefore promising rich reserves of oil shale and coal.
However, for better economic performance, this paper gives out
some suggestions. For the STL process, it is suggested to develop a
new retorting technology with high oil yield. In addition, using the
remaining retorting gas for hydrogen production can effectively
reduce raw material cost by 22%. For the CTL process, carbon
element utilization is low. It can be increased from 30% to 60% by
integrating crude syngas with coke-oven gas. In addition, optimi-
zation of steam system is an effective way to reduce production cost
of the CTL process.
Fig. 7. Production costs of the STL, the CTL, and the OTL processes.
Acknowledgment
operating and maintenance cost are attributed to long production
chain of the CTL process. It is suggested that (1) hydrogen rich raw The authors are grateful for the National Basic Research Program
materials, such as coke-oven gas, should be integrated to increase (2014CB744306) and financial support from the China NSF projects
carbon utilization rate. Man et al. [21] proposed a novel process of (21136003 and 21306056).
coke-oven gas assisted coal-to-olefins. Compared to conventional
coal-to-olefins process, the carbon utilization rate of this new Appendix.
process is increased from 30% to 60%; (2) system optimization for
heating network and utility system could be applied to reduce Table A is the key operational parameters of the oil shale
production cost. Li et al. [19] performed optimization of a steam retorting unit and shale oil hydrogenation unit [26,40].
system in an ethylene plant. The maximum of 8% reduction in Table B is the key operational parameters of coal gasification
production cost was achieved. unit, FischereTropsch (FeT) synthesis unit, and oil hydrogenation
unit [28,38].
Table C presents the total energy consumption, product energy,
4. Conclusions
and energy efficiency of the STL, the CTL, and the OTL processes.
Table D is the reference scales and reference equipment in-
The rich reserves of oil shale and coal give a potential to relieve
vestments of the STL and the CTL processes [14,16,21,24,27,28].
the shortage of oil supply in China. In this paper, a STL process and a
CTL process are modeled based on practical industrial processes.
Depending on simulation, analysis of their energy efficiency and Table A
economic performance is conducted to give some suggestions for Key parameters for the STL process simulation.
further development. Key parameters Value
The energy performance results indicate that the STL process
Oil shale retorting unit
and the CTL process are less thermodynamic efficient than the OTL Retorting temperature ( C) 525
process. This is because that the STL process exhibits high feedstock Gasification temperature ( C) 850
consumption. One effective way is to develop new retorting tech- Pressure (MPa) 0.1
nologies. In contrast, the CTL process suffers from high utility Oil shale flow rate (t/h) 1125
Steam rate (t/h) 196
consumption. It is suggested to enforce heat network and optimize
Air flow rate (t/h) 252
utility system for better energy utilization. Shale oil hydrogenation unit
The economic analysis find that the production cost of the OTL Hydrocracking temperature ( C) 380
process is in the range of 75.25 CNY/GJ and 131.79 CNY/GJ as oil Hydrogenation temperature ( C) 390
price increases from 50 $/bbl to 100 $/bbl. In contrast, the pro- Pressure (MPa) 0.1
m (H2)/m (shale oil) 0.034
duction costs of the STL process and the CTL process are 92.68 CNY/
 H. Zhou et al. / Energy 109 (2016) 201e210 209

Table B k reaction rate constants (kmol/(m3$s$Pa))

Key parameters for the CTL process simulation. Q production capacity
Key parameters Value RFi ration factor of capital investment of component i
Coal gasification unit
R gas constant (J/(mol$K))
Gasification temperature ( C) 1450 T practical temperature (K)
Gasification pressure (MPa) 3.2
Coal flow rate (t/h) 511.25
Oxygen flow rate (t/h) 440.83 Abbreviations
Oxygen purity (mol%) 95 A ash
Coal water slurry concentration (wt. %) 60 AS air separation
Coal conversion rate 0.95
AGR acid gas removal
FischereTropsch synthesis unit
FeT synthesis temperature ( C) 230
CG coal gasification
FeT synthesis pressure (MPa) 1.0 CTL coal-to-liquid
CO conversion rate 0.73 FC fixed carbon
Oil hydrogenation unit FTS FischereTropsch synthesis
Hydrocracking temperature ( C) 365
M moisture
Pressure (MPa) 6.4
m (H2)/m (shale oil) 0.015 MIXCINC both conventional and nonconventional solids are
present, but there is no particle size distribution
NC nonconventional
OH oil hydrogenation
Table C
Input-output and energy efficiencies of the STL, the CTL, and the OTL processes.
OSR oil shale retorting
OTL oil-to-liquid
Item STLa CTL OTLc Lower heating value
PC production cost
Consumption RYield yield reactor
Oil shale (t/t fuel) 24.50 N/A N/A 5720 MJ/ta RCSTR continuous stirred tank reactor
Hydrogen (t/t fuel) 0.0034 N/A N/A 209,060 MJ/tb
RGibbs Gibbs reactor
Coal (t/t fuel) N/A 4.09 N/A 24,190 MJ/tb
Oil (t/t fuel) N/A N/A 1.10 41,820 MJ/tb Rstoic stoichiometric reactor
Fuel coal (t/t fuel) N/A 1.09 N/A 20,900 MJ/tb Sep separator
Water (t/t fuel) 6.21 11.8 7.52 e SOH shale oil hydrogenation
Electricity (kWh/t fuel) 622.33 794.67 91.25 3.6 MJ/kWhb
STL shale-to-liquid
Steam (MJ/t fuel) 11,289 25,200 N/A e
Total energy input (MJ) 154,380 149,830 46,331 e
TCI total capital investment
Product output V volatiles
Gasoline (t/t fuel) 0.16 0.25 0.37 43,070 MJ/tb WGS water gas shift
Diesel (t/t fuel) 0.84 0.75 0.63 42,650 MJ/tb
Fuels energy (MJ) 42,717 42,755 42,805 e
Energy efficiency (%) 27.7 33.0 92.4 e Subscripts
a
[14]. t time (s)
b
[10]. x the conversion at a time t (kg/m3)
c
[7].

Superscripts
n reaction order
Table D sf scale factor
Benchmark case for equipment investments.

Process Unit Benchmark I1 Q1 (108 CNY)

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