545.    [CHEMICAL TRADE JOURNAL AND CHEMICAL ENGINEER.]   Fischer-Tropsch Plants.  Vol. 126, 1950, p. 616.

                 Both the Government and private pressure groups in western Germany are doing their utmost to keep some of the Fischer-Tropsch plants intact and in operation.  As the manufacture of synthetic-oil products is now a prohibited industry and as the need for running the plants for the production of Gatsch is no longer urgent, the Federal Ministry of Economics has submitted to the Allied experts a memorandum suggesting conversion of the remaining plants to the synthesis of alcohols.  The Germans now maintain that, by suitable modification, the process can be operated without production of any hydrocarbon fractions.  The conversion can be completed in 6-8 months.  The views of the Allies are not known.  In another direction the Federal German Government has already been successful in negotiations with the Allies.  They have agreed that Gelsenberg- Benzin A.-G. will resume refining this month, though not by the Bergius high-pressure hydrogenation process.  The main charging stock will be crude oil from the Emsland fields, of which large supplies exist, supplemented by imported oil from the German-American Oil Co., Ltd.  The monthly output is expected to be 15,000-20,000 tons petrol, 5,000-10,000 tons diesel oil and about 1,000 tons gas oil.