North Korea Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

Anlsvrthng said:

Ac tally, this capacity number means more than 20% of NK oil consumption.

The syngas contain 50% of NG energy content by wiki, so it means 20 000 cubic meter natural gas equivalent.

That is in the range of 2-3000 barrel / day.

An NK has a coal gassification plant in this size range already, next to Anju.

That makes ammonium nitrate . What other industrial process ( apart from synthetic fuel ) require this much syngas?

There is an abandoned synthetic fuel plant in Undok . Maybe they decided to get around the sanctions.

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You can use it in most industrial processes which would take natural gas as a feed stock. You could use it to make fertilizer, explosives, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, polymers, or even pipe the syngas to houses or industries and burn it for process heat. Turning it into diesel however would be quite expensive in energy terms and not that effective. It would also require a really large installation to liquefy the syngas similar to a Sasol plant. A coal gasification plant basically turns coal and water into syngas.

gelgoog said:

You can use it in most industrial processes which would take natural gas as a feed stock. You could use it to make fertilizer, explosives, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, polymers, or even pipe the syngas to houses or industries and burn it for process heat. Turning it into diesel however would be quite expensive in energy terms and not that effective. It would also require a really large installation to liquefy the syngas similar to a Sasol plant. A coal gasification plant basically turns coal and water into syngas.

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Fertiliser, explosive, covered with the Anju plant.
Polymers require more complicated process than Fischer - Tropsch .

Use the gas for heating way more wasteful than simply burn the original attractant, and require complicated piping.


Fischer - Tropsch require lot of investment/ has high maintenance cost and sensitive of sulphur.

Now, what else NK can use the syngas process?
I don't have clue. Unless they want to start another synthetics ammonia plant next to Pyongyang.

Anlsvrthng said:

Ac tally, this capacity number means more than 20% of NK oil consumption.

The syngas contain 50% of NG energy content by wiki, so it means 20 000 cubic meter natural gas equivalent.

That is in the range of 2-3000 barrel / day.

An NK has a coal gassification plant in this size range already, next to Anju.

That makes ammonium nitrate . What other industrial process ( apart from synthetic fuel ) require this much syngas?

There is an abandoned synthetic fuel plant in Undok . Maybe they decided to get around the sanctions.

Click to expand...

not so easy I worked for SASOL for years

basically H2+CO gives long chain hydrocarbons sounds easy definitely is not

first need to gasification plant to turn coal to H2 and CO
then you need pilot plant to turn H2 and CO into fuel, lots of water for cooling exothermic reaction
then you need separation
then you need refining

thats about $10 billion for the plant which is why outside Qatar hardly anyone can afford FT

China uses Cobalt catalyst for this process from South Africa called G1 catalyst same as used in Oryx

you can do it a dirty and cheap way if you are desperate trust me you will only last a few years before things go horribly wrong

the alternative is to use Syngas for methane production for town gas

again same chemistry different conditions, China uses Johnson Matthey Nickel catalyst called CRG-LHR

again needs $10 billion for a SNG plant massive amounts of water for cooling

I copy and paste from an Italian military forum

always "on the use by North Korea of a technique to produce synthetic fuels from coal"

dprktoday.com posted a video on youtube dated 21-1-2019, I was intrigued because initially showed a North Korean port and commercial naval units, hoping to see something cool that floats military type I have sat the 20 minutes of video , but nisba, no military ships, only at the end appears the baptism of the cargo Ja Ryok imo 9826952 built in their shipyards, which however dates back to 2017.
But it is a few minutes of the central part of the film that reminded me of the previous article on the transformation of coal into hydrocarbons, not understanding anything of what they say (actually, or added automatic translation, but does not solve the situation) I imagined that it is a research institute that has made prototype of this system, here some screenshots




they also show a model to explain the transformation


They show a diesel engine running (it looks like a generator)


it seems that the result is a liquid fuel

It is a tremendously expensive and inefficient process. In the case of a country like Qatar they have a reason for it. The feedstock is easier to transform: natural gas. Natgas is currently just being flared or reinjected underground because they have no pipeline facilities. LNG tankers have too low density to be enough to export it all, even though Qatar is the world's largest LNG gas exporter as it is. So they invested into gas-to-liquids facilities which took billions of dollars and nearly a decade to build.

I'm not saying the North Koreans might not be researching it in some limited capacity. But I suspect what you seeing in that documentary is something a little different. With some modifications it is possible to run a piston engine with coal slurry. Watch this.

39°50'21.95" N 106°48'36.47" E



China has the biggest coal to liquid plant outside of SA.

NK has one Urea/NH3/Fertilizer plant running, 2000-4000 barrel/ day equivalent should be used to make methanol ,as I see that has similar difficulty like the urea.

Methanol can be blended with diesel, up to 20% and can be used in petrol engines.


Means the new syngas plant if used to make methanol can increase the NK available oil equivalent capability by 20-40%.

China’s Sanctions Enforcement and Fuel Prices in North Korea: What the Data Tells Us

By the graph the fuel price in NK fluctuate quite wildly, but I think it is safe to say with minimal relations to the sanctions.

The Daily NK showing quite stable rice prices

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Overall, it seems that fuel prices have reached a general equilibrium. The country remains under heavy international sanctions, but is still able to procure enough fuel to keep most sectors of the economy afloat through a combination

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, gasification of coal and other methods, and Chinese imports and other deliveries. Prices are higher than seasonally normal prior to the latest rounds of particularly harsh sanctions, but have dropped substantially from the high-points of geopolitical tensions in the fall of 2017.

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It falling short to say the sanctions failed to put the NK economy into collapse, and creating millions of starving /dying NK citizens.

Anlsvrthng said:

creating millions of starving /dying NK citizens.

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Already did that themselves.

TerraN_EmpirE said:

Already did that themselves.

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You mean they embargoed themselves?

The failings of the DPRK are not all external. Remember for the 60s 70s and part of the 80s the North was the Economic Tiger of Korea.
But as the South rose the North Declined due to failed reforms, the collapse of the USSR, and a already overburdened agriculture and distribution system burdaned witb obsolete technologies. Compouded by a series if natural disasters and a internally failed state dedicated to investing in military weapons as opposed to economic development.

Claiming the Embargo is the cause is saying that the added weight of the furniture was the cause of the collapse of the floor and not the shotty building and severe termite infestation undermining the whole thing