JAPEX and other four Japanese companies have successfully produced synthetic oil at Yufutsu GTL Pilot Plant of our original and innovative process which utilizes carbon dioxide (CO2) in the souce gas as a feedstock with the Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation (JOGMEC) between 2001 to 2004.
In October 2006, JAPEX and other five Japanese companies established the Nippon GTL Technology Research Association and begin demonstration test project on technology to convert natural gas to liquid fuel (GTL technology) in coordination with JOGMEC. We will test GTL technology in a 500 bopd demonstration plant in preparation for commercial scale plant and explore further scaling up toward commercial capacity of several tens of thousands of bopd, developing GTL technology that is technologically and economically competitive. The process being developed in this GTL demonstration test project is a groundbreaking technology that would for the first time ever allow for natural gas containing carbon dioxide gas to be used directly.



Southeastern Asian countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand have gas fields that are rich in and are therefore difficult to develop commercially. For instance, the Natuna gas field in Indonesia has huge reserves of more than 200 TCF. However, due to its high CO2 content (70%), the CO2 separation cost is anticipated to have a major negative impact on the feasibility of the development.
Our technology creates a possibility to help accelerate the development of these gas fields which were once thought to be economically unfeasible.


DME is short for Di-Methyl Ether. DME is used for present points of the sprays such as cosmetics and paints, especially the propellant usage in Japan. Itself is similar to the LP gas, and commercialization has already started as a complement of LP gas in China. DME attracts attention as clean energy of the fuel usage etc. in the future by an easily producible via methanol.


In order to promote DME expected as the new generation clean fuel, JAPEX and other eight companies established the Fuel DME Production Co., Ltd. as a Joint Venture Company for DME production, and to construct an 80,000T/A DME production plant within Mitsubishi Gas Chemical Company Niigata Factory (Niigata-shi). The plant operation is scheduled to start from June 2008, and its production capacity is expandable to a 100,000T/A.
Japanese government has mentioned DME promotion to be an important matter in their ‘Fundamental Energy Plan’, and has supported technology developments for DME production and application. We will be developing further promotion in line with this national policy.
We will make efforts for future commercialization through promotion activities to apply DME produced from this new plant to boilers, power plants (including fuel cells), automobiles, etc.