Gas companies in Houston

Construction will soon begin on the first of a series of gas-to-liquids plants under development by an array of Houston-based companies to produce petroleum products from landfill gas.

Envia Energy on Friday morning broke ground on the project, which is slated to become operational in the first half of next year. Envia is a joint venture between Houston-based Waste Management, NRG Energy and Ventech Engineers International in conjunction with Velocys, a U.K.-based company with offices in Houston that’s been working on small-scale gas-to-liquids, or GTL, projects.

Velocys CEO Roy Lipski said in a statement that the Oklahoma City project could mark a turning point in the industry’s efforts to commercialize landfill gas. The project’s small size and standardized construction makes its more nimble than larger plants, allowing developers to ramp-up operations quickly, the company said. Under the construction process employed by Envia, up to 70 percent of the plant will be finished before it’s shipped to the field, lessening the risks of delays and cost overruns that plague larger projects, Envia said.

The plant will be built next to Waste Management’s East Oak landfill in Oklahoma City, marking the first step in a plan by the joint venture to develop several such plants across the United States to suck up landfill gas and combine it with natural gas to produce products including a cleaner-buring diesel, naphtha and synthetic waxes.

“Developing greater and more flexible capabilities to leverage biogas, stranded and traditional natural gas reserves and potentially captured carbon dioxide into a source for higher value, clean burning diesel fuels and other products makes sense for Americans looking for greater energy independence and cleaner energy supplies, ” John Ragan, NRG’s executive vice president and Gulf Coast regional president, said in a statement.

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