Techno-economic analysis study of coal gasification plant into various strategic chemicals

The abundant amount of coal reserves in Indonesia has a great potential to be used as a source of raw materials and energy for industry. However, the use of coal in meeting domestic needs is not optimally utilized, as indicated by the high number of raw coal exports abroad. In addition, the low quality of coal is also one of the reasons for its low utilization. The processing of coal into synthetic gas (syngas) opens the way downstream of coal-derived chemical products, namely dimethyl ether (DME), methanol, ammonia and synthetic natural gas (SNG). The integration of various chemical products is expected to maximize the potential of Indonesian coal. The plant capacity was 11540 tpd (tons per day) low-rank wet coal producing DME 2000 tpd, methanol 2500 tpd, ammonia 600 tpd and SNG 25 MMSCFD (million standard cubic feet per day). These chemical production technologies have been proven and are commercially available. Based on the results of the process and economic simulations, it is found that the establishment of a coal gasification plant into various integrated chemicals is feasible to be established with an internal rate of return (IRR) of 12.46% and a payback period of 6 years and 5 months.