Summit presses on with TCEP
19 February 2016While IGCC and carbon capture projects around the world have been facing serious challenges, Summit Power Group seems to be pushing forward with its Texas Clean Energy Project (TCEP), with hopes of achieving financial close around spring of 2016.
Described as "a large commercial power and chemicals project", the coal fuelled IGCC facility, to be sited near Odessa, Texas, is designed to capture more than 90% of its carbon dioxide emissions, while producing "400 MW of clean power and enough urea to reduce annual US imports by more than 10%", with the captured carbon dioxide to be permanently sequestered geologically in West Texas oilfields.
A recent key step was the signing of the EPC contract with China Huanqiu Contracting & Engineering Corp (HQC) and SNC-Lavalin Engineers & Constructors Inc. The contract covers engineering, procurement, construction, commissioning, and performance testing of the chemical and carbon capture block for the project, which will be integrated with a Siemens combined cycle power block. Siemens is also expected to supply the coal gasification equipment for the chemical block.
HQC, a wholly owned subsidiary of China National Petroleum Corporation operates in nearly 20 countries and has completed more than 17 major EPC contracts for chemical and power-oriented gasification complexes, Summit notes.
SNC-Lavalin and HQC have entered into a consortium agreement for the project. SNC-Lavalin's major responsibilities include engineering and procurement for the balance of plant activities outside the licensed technology areas as well as construction for the entire chemical block portion of the project.
TCEP is recognised by the US Department of Energy as a flagship carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) project and been awarded more than $450 million as part of the Office of Fossil Energy Clean Coal Power Initiative.
The project is also the recipient of $811 million in investment tax credits under section 48A of the Internal Revenue Code, awarded to qualifying advanced coal projects that generate at least 400 MW of power and capture a minimum of 65 percent of their CO2.
The signing comes 16 months after HQC and Summit launched an effort to improve the design of the project with the goal of reducing project costs, which rose sharply in 2013 as a result of soaring Texas labour rates due to the oil and gas boom. With the completion of updated engineering work and the addition of SNC-Lavalin to the team, this contract brings that effort to a successful conclusion, says Summit.
(Originally published in MPS January 2016)
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