Energy Giants Create Global Synthetic Natural Gas Coalition

Supermajor TotalEnergies, another French energy giant, Engie, and U.S. Sempra Infrastructure have announced plans to create a global coalition to support the production and use of e-natural gas (e-NG), a synthetic natural gas produced from renewable hydrogen and CO2.

A total of eight major companies from three continents – TotalEnergies and Engie of France, Belgium’s TES, U.S. firm Sempra Infrastructure, and Japan’s Mitsubishi Corporation, Osaka Gas, Tokyo Gas, and Toho Gas – are joining forces to launch the global coalition, “e-NG Coalition”, whose purpose is to support e-NG development in a reliable, affordable and sustainable way, TotalEnergies said in a statement.

The new international coalition will be looking to promote the use of e-NG, also referred to as e-methane, and support the emergence of a global market. The founding partners will also aim to foster adequate support from policymakers and harmonization of applicable regulations and standards and boost cooperation along the entire value chain and across all geographies.

According to Mitsubishi, “e-NG is considered as a sustainable “drop-in” solution for gas consumers as it does not require the modification of industrial processes and applications to be used in place of conventional natural gas.”

TotalEnergies touted other advantages of e-NG—it can be transported and/or liquefied and then sold like natural gas, using existing infrastructure.

“It thus can be used by end customers without any adaptation to their facilities, making it a particularly interesting synthetic fuel to support their decarbonization efforts,” said the French supermajor, which has placed gas and LNG at the core of its current and future focus of operations.

Last year, TotalEnergies said it plans to build a large-scale plant to produce synthetic natural gas in the United States—a project that will benefit from tax credits in the Inflation Reduction Act.

In the statement announcing the e-NG coalition, TotalEnergies said that it is currently studying the Live Oak e-NG project with TES, to produce 100,000 to 200,000 tons of e-NG per year in the United States by 2030.

By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com

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