The Dakota Gasification Company (DGC) board approved in April DGC’s participation in a new international joint business venture. As a result, the Great Plains Synfuels Plant could eventually be selling purified catechols.
DGC representatives recently traveled to Chennai, India, to meet with Southern Agro Phenols Ltd. (SAPL) and Rütgers VFT, a German company. Rütgers and SAPL will be DGC’s partners in the new joint venture.
The purpose of the visit to the southeast coast of India was to discuss the terms of a joint-venture agreement between the three companies, and to review the condition of an idle Indian plant that would be used. The goal of the joint venture is both to prove technologies that are proprietary to DGC and Rütgers, and to produce semi-commercial quantities (several tons) of purified catechols using those technologies.
The venture is intended to prove DGC’s proprietary technology and help establish an international market for three catechols:
Each product can be used as the starting material for making a variety of pesticides, pharmaceuticals, fine chemicals, insecticides, fragrances and concrete additives.
DGC says it has the potential for producing approximately 2 million pounds per year of catechol, 2 million pounds per year of 3-methylcatechol and 4 million pounds per year of 4-methylcatechol.
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