What is the economic scale in 10,000 tons for the indirect liquefaction coal-to-oil project?

The economics of coal-to-oil production are highly dependent on crude oil prices. For the indirect liquefaction of coal, in China there are facilities such as Lu’an’s plant with a capacity of 60,000 tons per year using a cobalt-based fixed-bed process; its main profitable product is paraffin. There is also Yanchang Petroleum’s plant with a capacity of 150,000 tons per year using a cobalt-based slurry-bed process, as well as plants with capacities of 160,000–180,000 tons per year using iron-based slurry-bed processes – one each operated by Lu’an Yitai and Shenhua. Additionally, Yankuang Future Energy has a plant with a capacity of 1.08 million tons per year for iron-based coal-to-oil production. Next year, Shenhua Ningmei will start production with a capacity of 4 million tons, Lu’an with 1 million tons, and Yitai with 1.2 million tons. All of these use the technology developed by Zhongke Synthetic Oil; each production unit has a capacity of 500,000 tons per year. Therefore, some companies may opt to install only one such unit with a capacity of 500,000 tons per year, depending on their financial capabilities.

According to some sources, \"As the world’s largest coal-to-oil project in terms of the scale of its single installation, it was learned from a high-level coordination meeting regarding the construction of the Shenhua Ningmei Coal-to-Oil Chemical Project that on March 18, 2016, this project would begin producing qualified methanol products.\" ” Is 4 million tons the scale of a single-series plant? Or a scale of 4 million tons, consisting of several sets of 500,000-ton units?

4 million tons are composed of the AB series, with 4 slurry-bed Fischer-Tropsch synthesis reactors in each series, each having a capacity of 500,000 tons.