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Abstract
By contrast, the "early release" version of AEO 2006 (see Diesel Fuel News 1/3/06, p6) didn't include the "high oil price case" but rather a more modest "reference" forecast showing that CTL could account for about 760,000 barrels/day of distillate by 2030, or about 13% of U.S. distillate supply. The big difference between the two forecasts: EIA's "high price" case sees oil prices soaring to $96/bbl by 2030, whereas the "reference case" sees oil prices at only $57/bbl in 2030 (all in 2004 U.S. dollars).
As a result, "GTL enters the [U.S.] market in 2020 and production grows to 194,000 barrels/day in 2030," EIA found. "CTL production grows to 1.69 million barrels/day in 2030 in the high-price case." World-wide, CTL supply would jump to 2.3 million bbl/day by 2030 under the "high-price" case, while world-wide GTL would reach 2.6 million b/d.
* Hydrotreating bio-feedstocks in an oil refinery to make a high-cetane, zero-sulfur "green diesel" or bio-paraffin product (such as the schemes developed by UOP, Neste and Environment Canada) would be "less expensive than a BTL plant but more expensive than a biodiesel plant," EIA noted. However, one "green-diesel" proponent has shown that the high quality of the resulting paraffinic diesel product yields much higher refiner blending values than with biodiesel (see Diesel Fuel News 12/5/05, p3).