Preliminary Feasibility Study for Commercial DME Plant Project

Abstract >> Dimethyl ether (DME) is a new clean fuel as an environmentally-being energy resources. DME hassimilar characteristics to those of LPG and can be substituted Diesel fuel. KOGAS has investigated and developednew innovative DME synthesis process from synthesis gas with KOGAS's own technologies. KOGAS had finished the construction of 10ton/day DME demonstration plant in 2008, we have established the basic design of commercial plant which can produce 3,000ton/day DME. Specifically, an economic model for a commercial DME project willbe presented. It accounts for all the major cost factors that are considered in a commercial scale project as themodel input for performing cash flow analysis, after which key economic indicators are produced including the internal rate of return (IRR), net present value (NPV). Sensitivity analysis is performed to identify dominant costfactors to the project economics and quantify their impact. The inputs to the economic analysis will be basedon representative cost factors from the commercial-scale design of KOGAS’ direct DME process supplementedby literature data. Case study results will be presented based on recent commercialization projects.