Page 1 of 7 DRAFT CEN Workshop Business Plan CEN Workshop Automotive fuels Blends of paraffinic diesel from synthesis (XTL) or hydrotreatment (HVO) and fatty acid methyl esters (FAME) Requirements and test methods Status: Draft document for 60 Days commenting phase on the web. 1 Background to the CEN Workshop Worldwide, energy policy makers are increasingly keen to move away from petroleumbased fuels to more diverse and renewable sources of energy for reasons of environmental protection, energy security and continued economic development. Amongst the available solutions are the synthetic paraffinic fuels, already discussed in a linked CEN workshop WS38, which led to the workshop specification CWA 15940. Typical production processes, covered by that workshop, are: 1. Fischer Tropsch synthesis (XTL), 2. Hydrotreatment of vegetable oils (HVO), and 3. Conversion of olefins to distillates (COD). These are fully discussed in Annex B. The WS38 activity in 2007 to 2009 covered the requirements and test methods for the B0 variants of paraffinic fuels (where B0 indicates no addition of biodiesel components i.e. FAMEs). However, against the background of the EU Renewable Energy Directive (RED, 2009/28/EC) and also the latest EN 590 regular diesel specification which allows B7 FAME blends, there is now a pressing requirement to allow for Bx variations of those paraffinic fuels, which are not already classified as being from renewable resources. These new CWA activities would allow for another CWA paraffinic diesel specification to mirror the current EN 590 specification. That is, allowing a Bx variant of paraffinic diesel up to B7, in the same way that the EN 590 specification allows for refinery diesel up to B7. This would have the following advantages: 1. Gives flexibility of synthetic diesel supply within EU against the backdrop of both the Renewable Energy Directive and the Fuels Quality Directive (2009/30/EC), which demand total fuel supply contains certain percentages of bio-components, to decrease fossil energy usage. 2. Brings a synthetic diesel CWA specification totally in line with the EU refinery diesel specification EN 590. The automotive industry has had concerns about the blending of FAME into diesel fuel and subsequent quality of the fuel blend. These concerns have been addressed by the strict cap of 7% and the tighter quality procedures in the EN 590 B7 specification (e.g. strict oxidation stability requirements). Whilst other components might fall under the EU Directive definition of a biocomponent, such a BTL (Fisher-Tropsch using biomass as feedstock) or HVO, the supply of these remains quite small compared to the needs in the future, and so remarkably FAME will remain the predominant solution by which fuels achieve compliance with the EU Directive in the short to midterm. Currently, conventional refinery diesels have a distinct advantage over synthetic fuels in that EN 590 has allowed B7 blends since March 2009 (and B5 since 2004), but the synthetic fuel specification CWA 15940 only allows for B0. Thus because of Page: 1 of 7
Page 2 of 7 the EU Directives, synthetic fuel marketers do not have the required flexibility of their supply chain. If left unchecked, such a situation would favour conventional fuels over synthetic and might potentially block or slow down the introduction of synthetic fuels into Europe. Of course, for those synthetic paraffinic fuels which are biocomponents in their own right (e.g. BTL and HVO), they should already comply with the biofuels directive and so the B7 case would merely give an additional option of FAME blending that could also be applied into HVO or BTL. Moreover, the current CWA 15940 does allow full flexibility of blending HVO or BTL with GTL or CTL, but against a background of limited supplies as indicated above. 2 Workshop Proposers This proposal originates from Shell and Sasol, who are active GTL and CTL producers in the area of low-temperature Fischer-Tropsch synthesis today and in the mid to long term, it is expected that this production route will add significant volumes of synthetic fuels. Both companies will participate in the Workshop, which however is open to any other interested party in a similar way to the first Workshop on this topic. 3 Market Environment The first commercial GTL plant applying low-temperature Fischer-Tropsch synthesis is a relatively small plant 670 ktpa (14,700 barrels per day, bpd), which has been operated by Shell in Malaysia since the early 1990s. Sasol has recently opened a 1550 ktpa (34,000 bpd) GTL plant in Qatar, and other larger world-scale GTL projects under development in Qatar and in Nigeria by Sasol will open within the next 1-3 years. Production of GTL fuel is expected to approach 4550 ktpa (100,000 barrels per day) by 2012. Neste Oil has had a 190 ktpa HVO plant operational since 2007 and another 190 ktpa unit since 2009. An 800 ktpa HVO plant will start in Singapore during 2010 and an 800 ktpa unit in Rotterdam in 2011. Directive 2003/30/EC, better known as the Renewable Energy Directive, stipulates that national measures must be taken by countries across the EU with an aim of replacing 10% of all transport fossil fuels with alternative fuels by 2020 (where the percentage is expressed on the basis of fuel energy content). Member States have some measure of freedom in the way they choose to interpret and implement the Directive. In some circumstances it may be possible for a supplier to provide a fuel without any biofuel content, provided that the average biofuel content across the totality of his fuel supplier meets the criterion. However, some Member States might demand that each and every part of his total fuel supply must meet a certain percentage in order to be able to supply to the market or to receive tax benefits. Against this background of diverging EU legislation, a B7 synthetic fuel specification will give the necessary flexibility for synthetic fuel suppliers to sell and import their product overall Europe. 4 Objectives of the CEN Workshop Because the full advantages of synthetic fuels are realised in their pure form, it is proposed to leave the CWA 15940 requirements for B0 synthetic fuels fully intact, so that customers who have a specific requirement for a neat synthetic fuel can be certain of receiving one via the CWA 15940 B0 specification. Thus, the current proposal and objective will be to develop another stand-alone specification for automotive paraffinic diesel fuel from synthesis or hydrotreatment for use in automotive diesel engines, but allowing for Bx (0-7%) variant of synthetic paraffinic fuels. Taking into account markets that might require Page: 2 of 7
Page 3 of 7 Bx variants of paraffinic fuels, e.g. such as dedicated diesel fleets. This will be done as a CEN Workshop Agreement. The specification should be based on the CWA 15940 requirements and the EN 590 B7 experiences. Because of synthetic fuels requirement to meet the EU Directives, the Workshop Agreement will be mainly based around GTL fuel experiences. The CWA will be usable on a voluntary basis for engine clearance, fuel acceptance and fuelling station allowance, supporting both local regulations and international trade. In the longer term, further work in this area, including moves towards a more formal standard, will depend on whether paraffinic diesel becomes available as a general automotive fuel widely available. The Workshop will in this respect maintain close contact with CEN/TC 19 Gaseous and liquid fuels, lubricants and related products of petroleum, synthetic and biological origin. For more details see the Annex A. 5 CEN Workshop Work Programme Given that B7 has been successfully incorporated into the EN 590 specification, the consensus at concluding discussions of the WS38 workshop was that the inclusion of a B7 option for paraffinic fuels should require minimal work. A detailed specification on the basis of both the CWA 15940 specification and the experiences related to the management of the B7 biofuels requirement for EN 590 will form the basis of the workshop discussions. Preparation work for this meeting has been done by the Workshop proposers (see Clause 2). After the Kick-Off meeting, interested parties are invited to officially register as participants on acceptance of the agreed Business Plan and the fee. A second meeting is envisaged after two/three months, at which additional technical data will be discussed and a final text drafted. As CWA 15490, EN 590 and EN 14214 will be used as a starting point, and only changing certain key parameters (i.e. those pertinent to these particular fuels). This text will be formalized and, looking at the variety of participants, no public commenting period is envisaged. The generated comments will be discussed and the registered participants be asked to approve the final text at the last Workshop Plenary meeting after six to seven months from the start of the project. Throughout the period of the workshop, no laboratory testing is foreseen as needed. This view is based on the testing experiences of the sponsors. Two areas of potential concern would be (a) the oxidation stability of paraffinic fuels, and (b) the ability of paraffinic fuels to solubilise certain FAME contaminants (i.e. monoglycerides) at low temperatures. For (a) whilst paraffinic fuels have intrinsically low levels of antioxidants, this is counterbalanced by the fact that paraffinic molecules are intrinsically resistant to oxidation compared to other hydrocarbons. Test work on oxidation stability testing of XTL Bx blends is available for sharing with workshop participants. For (b) the precipitation of monoglycerides at low temperature has been well documented for Swedish Class 1, and a successful solution of a tighter FAME specification has been adopted. Testwork on blends is also available to share with workshop participants to show that this solution also works well with XTL FAME blends. More generally, test methods are considered applicable and already standardized. This is a result of the test experience of the sponsors over a considerable number of years Page: 3 of 7
Page 4 of 7 Checking the text to the CEN drafting rules and publication and providing the final draft for checks for technical mistakes by CEN/TC 19/WG 24 for a short period, will be done by the Secretariat in co-ordination with the Chairman. The CWA will be first published in English only. Publication will be after a maximum of nine to ten months. 6 CEN Workshop Structure and Resource Requirements The Chairman will work on a voluntary basis. Mrs. Sylvia Williams of Shell International Petroleum Co, one of the world s foremost GTL producers and a founder member of the Alliance, acted as chairman for the WS38 workshop and is proposed to chair this workshop. NEN, the Dutch CEN Member, provides the WS Secretariat. NEN also holds the CEN/TC 19 Secretariat, hence being a direct contact to the relevant experts for further questions or dissemination of the WS results. The Secretariat will support the Workshop by organizing meetings (in collaboration with the CEN Management Centre for the Kick-Off meeting), distributing documents, writing minutes and organising document editing. All communication, apart from 2 to 3 meetings, will be done via e-mail. The expected resources required for the Workshop would be: - Chairs: 9 man-days - Secretariat: 16 man-days; - Proposers: 5-8 man-days each; - Other participants (not being a proposer): 5 6 man-days each The proposers are providing some financial support, but as a contribution to the overall secretarial and organizational costs a further 1000 is requested from the registered participants (per organization). 7 External Liaisons The Workshop will operate in liaison with CEN/TC 19 and the Secretary will assure this. 8 Contact Points Project secretariat: Ir. O.M. Costenoble NEN Energy Resources PO Box 5059 2600 GB Delft The Netherlands CEN/CMC Ms. Gaid Le Gall tel.: +31-(0)152690326 fax: +31-(0)152690207 energy@nen.nl tel.: +32-(0)25500939 gaid.legall@cen.eu Page: 4 of 7
Page 5 of 7 Annex A Clarification of the context of the paraffinic automotive diesel specification In a parallel exercise, it has been agreed within the EU that GTL products should be placed on ELINCS (European List of Notified Chemical Substances) 1 in specific GTL derived fuels- and lubricants-described categories that enable them to be distinguished from conventional oil products, in recognition of their different method of production and of their less toxic nature and lower environmental impact. GTL is already imported into EU for retail fuel and with production from the new SASOL plant, there is the potential for the 100% GTL fuel marketing applications being only months away. The proposers believe that in view of current GTL developments, the availability of GTL Fuel in Europe will increase rapidly in Europe within the next few years, and that now is the time to develop a specification for the fuel. The envisaged specification should be based on EN 590. It will highlight the differences between paraffinic diesel and the fuels covered in the European regular diesel specification. These are mainly in the areas of distillation, lubricating effects, density, sulphur, aromatics, cetane number and cold flow properties the details will be examined during the Workshop itself. As EN 590 also contains the possibility to blend in FAME, such shall be considered also for paraffinic diesel in this proposed workshop. This probably needs to be addressed by a separate table of requirements for low biodiesel blends due to stability and to the fact that this is a specific choice of (fleet) users. Since March 2009, the EN 590 limits have allowed up to 7% FAME blending. The need for a specification for GTL Fuel was considered by CEN/TC 19 "Gaseous and liquid fuels, lubricants and related products of petroleum, synthetic and biological origin" in May 2009, after the publication of CWA 15490. Their position at that time was as follows: "The group identified no need for a CEN standard for these streams when used as blending component in conventional fuels. When 100% GTL/BTL is used as automotive fuel, the. CWA can also be used". If the use of paraffinic diesel as a general automotive fuel is soon to be foreseen, a regular CEN/TC process needs to be debated. Widespread availability at public fuelling station is not the aim of the proposers yet. In close collaboration with CEN/TC 19, the Workshop will act in consultation with the European Commission, and European organizations for automakers (ACEA), oil refinery industry (Europia), biodiesel producers (EBB) and filling station owners (UEPA). 1 The inventory on which new substances manufactured in or imported into Europe are registered Page: 5 of 7
Page 6 of 7 Annex B Outline description of Paraffinic Fuels and their production methods 2 A variety of processes delivers paraffinic fuel molecules, which all can be used as a diesel type fuel. In general, the products are produced starting from the conversion of natural gas, biomass or coal via three possible process routes to produce the final product slate, with diesel as one of the resulting product volumes: 1. Fischer Tropsch synthesis (XTL), (see Figure 1); 2. Hydrotreatment (see Figure 2); 3. Conversion of olefins to distillates, COD (see Figure 3). natural gas, coal, biomass, waste air air air separation separation synthesis gas CO + 2H syngas 2 syngas manufacture manufacture cleaning & conditioning oxygen O 2 Fischer- Fischer- Tropsch Tropsch synthesis synthesis H 2 O straight - run FT products hydro hydro -- processing processing & separation separation finished XTL products refinery/chemical products: naphtha kerosene diesel base oils Figure 1: XTL process diagram The Fischer-Tropsch technology, starts with a conversion step to synthesis gas (syngas, a mixture of CO and H2), which can be applied to a variety of feedstocks, such as natural gas, biomass and coal. There are both a low temperature and high temperature variants of Fischer-Tropsch (LTFT and HTFT). The LTFT process results in a product comprising synthetic, paraffinic fuel molecules. The product XTL is identical regardless of the starting material, where the X stands for: Gas (G), Coal (C) or Biomass/Biogas (B). An alternative to the more often used low-temperature process, is the high temperature Fischer-Tropsch technology (HTFT). One of the results of this process is that the fuels contain aromatics and therefore are more similar to conventional diesel fuels. vegetable oils (& animal fats) pretreatment H 2 solids hydrotreating & further processing H 2 O Figure 2 Hydrotreating process diagram finished products diesel naphtha LPG Hydrotreatment is a catalytic hydrogen treatment process usually applied to convert vegetable oils (unsuitable for diesel) into a very good quality diesel. Hence, its more usual name "hydrotreated vegetable oil" (HVO). Alternatively animal fats or other oils can be used. It is a direct process route resulting in paraffinic diesel with slightly different characteristics. 2 Taken from WS 38 business plan Page: 6 of 7
Page 7 of 7 HTFT / Petchem light olefins catalytic conversion of olefins (COD) distillates hydroprocessing and separation finished COD products refinery/chemical products: naphtha kerosene diesel Figure 3 COD process diagram COD effectively adds a second production step to the aromatics and olefins containing slate from other processes (e.g. HTFT). It is an indirect process route, an olefin oligomerisation and hydrogenation process in its own right, which results in paraffinic diesel with slightly different characteristics. In general, GTL, BTL, CTL, HVO and COD comprise the paraffinic fuels continuum, providing flexible feedstock options that are attractive to both policy makers and engine manufacturers. For that reason the aim of this CEN Workshop is to cover paraffinic fuels which are nearly identical in composition, but differ in starting material or production process. The general reference for the targeted automotive fuels is paraffinic diesels. From an environmental perspective, paraffinic diesel fuel is a high quality, cleaner burning fuel with virtually no sulphur and aromatics. Its low density is normally outside the EN 590 diesel specification, and it may have a very high cetane number. A lower density than the density of a regular diesel fuel generates an upper fuel consumption. That can be compensated for these paraffinic fuels by their upper values in "minimum heating value" and "H/C ratio". Paraffinic fuel could be used in some existing diesel engines, substantially reducing regulated emissions. In order to have a maximised emissions reduction, a specific calibration might be necessary. On a lifecycle assessment basis, the GTL production system is broadly comparable to complex modern oil refinery systems in terms of greenhouse gas emissions 3. There is the potential for a significant reduction as a result of anticipated improvements in both plant efficiency and vehicle efficiency. Moreover, the use of biomass as feedstock (BTL, HVO) will reduce the well-to-wheels emissions. However, CTL s greenhouse gas emissions are higher than those of refinery diesel fuel, unless mitigated by carbon capture and storage. Paraffinic automotive diesel can be used in existing diesel engines even in adapted optimized engines - and can use the existing diesel distribution and refuelling infrastructure, giving it a large advantage over most other alternative fuels and indeed something that is unique for fuels based on gaseous or solid feedstock. It may well be the most cost effective alternative fuel for the replacement of petroleum based products and for reducing both regulated and non-regulated emissions. For general diesel engine warranty paraffinic automotive diesel needs a validation step, which for some existing engines may still need to be done. 3 several studies have been done and being studied in CEN/TC 383, one to mention is the bi-annually updated JRC, EUCAR and CONCAWE well-to-wheels study. Page: 7 of 7