Siluria Technologies Unveils Innovative Technology to Convert Natural Gas to Liquid Fuels

SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwired - Mar 21, 2014) -  Siluria Technologies, a pioneer in the commercial production of fuels and chemicals made from clean and abundant natural gas, unveiled a first-of-its-kind development unit for producing liquid fuels from natural gas based on Siluria's proprietary oxidative coupling of methane (OCM) and ethylene-to-liquid (ETL) technologies. The announcement was made during a ceremony at Siluria's new facility in Hayward, California, which began operations in November 2013.

"The successful scale-up of a commercially-ready process for producing fuels from natural gas represents another key milestone in our strategy," said Siluria CEO Ed Dineen. "We have already demonstrated how our technology can be employed to produce gasoline, an achievement that paves the way for first commercial facilities producing liquid fuels in the 2017 timeframe."

Attending the ribbon cutting ceremony was U.S. Congressman Eric Swalwell of California's 15^th District, Hayward Mayor Michael Sweeney and other local officials. 

"Siluria Technologies is performing innovative work to enable the production of cleaner transportation fuels by taking advantage of our nation's abundant natural gas and renewable methane," said Congressman Swalwell. "This is exciting technology that can help create jobs, bolster our energy independence and benefit the environment and American consumers."

Siluria's OCM and ETL technologies form a unique and efficient process for transforming methane -- the principle ingredient in natural gas and renewable methane -- into gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and other liquid fuels. Unlike the high-temperature, high-pressure cracking processes employed today to produce fuels and chemicals, Siluria's process employs catalytic processes to create longer-chain, higher-value materials, thereby dramatically reducing operating costs and capital.

At commercial scale, Siluria's process will enable refiners and fuel manufacturers to produce transportation fuels that cost considerably less than today's petroleum-based fuels, while reducing overall emissions, NOx, sulfur and particulate matter.. Fuels made with Siluria's processes are also compatible with existing vehicles, pipelines and other infrastructure and can be integrated into global supply chains.

Earlier this year, Siluria announced that it will build an OCM demonstration plant at Braskem's site in La Porte, Texas. Braskem is one of the leading producers of ethylene and plastics in the Americas. Siluria and Braskem have also entered into a relationship to explore commercialization of this technology. The OCM demonstration plant will begin operations later this year.

Siluria's Hayward ETL facility and the La Porte OCM demonstration plant are the last scale-up steps prior to full commercialization of Siluria's technology platform.

Siluria plans to deploy its technology in a range of commercial settings, including existing ethylene producing plants, at ethylene consuming sites, upstream gas monetization, natural gas midstream plants, as well as world-scale deployments. Siluria process dramatically reduces the cost, complexity and emissions associated with the production of these higher value products across the energy spectrum.

About Siluria:
Siluria Technologies is pioneering the commercial production of fuels and chemicals made from clean, abundant natural gas. Siluria's break-through process technology is believed to be the first commercially viable process to directly convert methane to ethylene, potentially enabling natural gas to replace petroleum as the world-wide basis for drop-in fuels, chemicals and plastics. Siluria's revolutionary catalyst technologies uniquely combine nanomaterials, biotechnology and chemical engineering, to convert an abundant, ubiquitous, and inexpensive feedstock into high value, drop-in fuels and chemicals using processes that can be seamlessly integrated into existing industry infrastructure. www.siluria.com