The Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. is one of the world's largest and most diverse providers of professional technical services employing over 35,000 personnel in over 40 offices around the world. The company provides a full spectrum of support to industrial, commercial and government clients across multiple markets.

The Jacobs Consultancy Group is a business line within the Jacobs Engineering Group with 11 offices around the world that provide a wide range of consulting services to a variety of clients.

The Development and Technology Practice within the Consultancy Group provides management and technology consultancy to process plant investors, financial institutions and government agencies. The Practice focuses on processes for the efficient generation and utilisation of synthesis gas (syngas) derived from gasification or reforming of solid, liquid or gaseous feedstocks. The syngas is then converted into a variety of products such as methanol, ammonia, hydrogen and FT liquids or used as a fuel in, for example, the production of electricity in IGCC plants. Jacob's recent gasification experience includes the plant configuration development, feasibility evaluation and ITB development for the ISAB and Sarlux 500MW IGCC plants in Italy (Jacob's licensed their technology to the ISAB project) and the detailed design for the coal feed Buggenum IGCC and the heavy oil feed Pernis IGCC projects in The Netherlands.

PAML's introduction to Jacobs came through our involvement in the Hatfield IGCC project (refer to Hatfield in our Experience List), where Jacob's are acting as Owner's Engineer and Project Management Consultant, and we continue to support them in their objective to establish the commercial viability of stand alone coal gasification plants providing syngas to existing CCGT plants.

In particular, PAML have entered into a Collaboration Agreement with a number of companies and organisations to execute a project entitled “Impact of CO2 Removal from Coal Gasification Based Fuel Plants”. The other participants in this collaboration are Jacobs, who are acting as the lead company, the Electric Power Research Institute of the US, the University of Nottingham, Mitsui Babcock, Watergrid Limited and E.ON UK plc. The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry has offered a financial contribution towards the project as part of the DTI’s Cleaner Coal Technology R&D Program. One of the objectives of the project is to develop the economics of coal gasification plants to demonstrate that syngas is a commercially viable alternative to natural gas as a fuel for CCGT plants. PAML’s primary role in the project will be to carry out the economic analysis required to demonstrate this commercial viability.

A link to Jacob’s website is included in our “Links” section.