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Argentina and Venezuela to cooperate in $2.2B 100,000 bpd extra-heavy oil joint venture in Orinoco Belt
19 January 2012 Green Car Congress  ( http://www.greencarcongress.com/brief/index.html ) 
Argentina and Venezuela will form a joint venture targeting production of 100,000 barrels of extra-heavy oil per day in the Junin field area of the Orinoco Oil Belt. The $2.2 billion project will also include a refinery. The Orinoco Belt contains heavy and extra-heavy oil with a range of gravities from 4 to 16 degrees API (a measure of density); some Junin projects have oil ranging from 7-8 degrees API.
The US Geological Survey (USGS) characterizes extra-heavy oil as having an API gravity of less than 10°. Natural bitumen (i.e., oil sands) shares the attributes of heavy oil but can be yet more dense and viscous. According to the Government of Alberta, Canada, Athabasca bitumen has an API gravity number of less than 10°.

As reported by Venezuela’s Minister of Mines and Petroleum, Rafael Ramirez, a study by both nations, certified the existence of a reserve of 1,700 million barrels of oil in the area.
Venezuela President Hugo Chavez said that oil cooperation between the two countries dates back to 2004, with the late Argentine President Nestor Kirchner. The alliance coincided with the release of the Orinoco Belt to participation by foreign companies in 2005.
The US Energy Information Administration notes that, according to Oil and Gas Journal (OGJ), Venezuela had 211 billion barrels of proven oil reserves in 2011, the second largest the world. This number constitutes a major upward revision, EIA points out, as the prior year OGJ put the country’s reserves at 99.4 billion barrels. The update results from the inclusion of massive reserves of extra-heavy oil in the Orinoco belt.
According to a study released by the US Geological Survey, the mean estimate of recoverable oil resources from the Orinoco Belt is 513 billion barrels of crude oil. PdVSA began the ‘Magna Reserva’ project in 2005, which involved dividing the Orinoco region into 27 blocks and quantifying the reserves in place. This initiative resulted in the upgrading of Venezuelan reserve estimates by more than 100 billion barrels.
In the 1990s Venezuela established four strategic associations to exploit these resources, later converting them to mixed companies with majority PdVSA ownership. These projects involve converting the extra heavy crude and bitumen to lighter, sweeter crude, known as syncrude... Venezuela plans to further develop the Orinoco Belt oil resources in the coming years. In 2009 Venezuela signed bilateral agreements for the development of four major blocks in the Junin area. [In 2010] the country awarded two more major development licenses in the Carabobo region. Venezuela expects these projects to add more that 2,000,000 bbl/d of heavy oil production capacity by the end of the decade. —EIA

Texas utility signs first US Power Purchase Agreement for low-emissions electricity from commercial-scale coal-fired power plant with carbon capture
18 January 2012  Green Car Congress  ( http://www.greencarcongress.com/brief/index.html ) 
CPS Energy of San Antonio has signed a Power Purchase Agreement for approximately 200 MW of power from the Texas Clean Energy Project (TCEP), located just west of Midland-Odessa. The agreement marks the first US purchase by a utility of low-carbon power from a commercial-scale, coal-based power plant utilizing carbon capture.
The 400-MW TCEP plant is an Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) poly-generation facility capable of capturing 90% of the carbon dioxide it produces, as well as 99% of sulfur dioxide, 90% of nitrogen oxide, and 99% of mercury.
TCEP was a third-round selection under DOE’s Clean Coal Power Initiative, a cost-shared collaboration between the Federal government and private industry aimed at stimulating investment in low-emission coal-based power generation technologies through successful commercial demonstrations. The $2.4 billion plant will receive $450 million in funding from the Clean Coal Power Initiative; of this, $211 million comes from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The facility is expected to be fully operational in 2015.
DOE’s Office of Fossil Energy has been instrumental in the research, development, and deployment of IGCC. Gasification uses oxygen and steam at high pressures to convert coal into syngas, which is mainly a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide. In a non-carbon-capture plant, the syngas is cleaned to remove impurities and sent to a gas turbine where it undergoes combustion to produce electricity. The hot flue gas from the gas turbine, containing CO₂, is used to generate steam, which is fed to a steam turbine to produce additional electricity and then vented to the atmosphere. This process is known as integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) because coal-fired gasification is integrated into a combined-cycle system that produces electricity from both the gas turbine and the steam turbine.
In the TCEP carbon capture plant, the carbon monoxide in the syngas will first be “shifted” to produce additional hydrogen and CO₂, cleaned of impurities, and then separated into pure streams of hydrogen and CO₂. The hydrogen will be combusted in an advanced combustion turbine, producing a carbon-free flue gas.
Of the nearly 2.9 million metric tons of CO₂ that will be captured annually at the TCEP plant, approximately 83% will be used for enhanced oil recovery in the West Texas Permian Basin; the remainder will be to produce urea, a high-value product. The production of a co-product in addition to electricity significantly improves the overall economics of the process.
Compared to traditional power plants, IGCC offers many advantages, including increased power plant efficiency and resulting lower-cost electricity. Unlike conventional power plants that remove environmental contaminants from the large-volume nitrogen-containing flue gas after combustion, IGCC power plants remove contaminants before combustion. Because gasification plants operate at high pressure with oxygen instead of air, the volume of gas that has to be treated is nearly two orders of magnitude lower, making the removal of environmental contaminants much easier. In addition, CO₂ is much easier to capture and is produced at higher pressures than that from conventional power plants.
Today, approximately 80% of the energy consumed in the United States comes from coal, petroleum, and natural gas, with coal-fired power plants accounting for approximately half of the electricity generated.

OriginOil and Idaho National Lab to develop direct conversion of algae into renewable crude oil for existing oil refineries
15 January 2012   Green Car Congress  ( http://www.greencarcongress.com/brief/index.html )
OriginOil, Inc., the developer of a technology to extract oil from algae, plans to co-develop an integrated system with the US Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory (INL) for direct conversion of raw algae into a renewable crude oil that can be used by existing petroleum refineries.
OriginOil’s planned Biocrude System will integrate its own harvesting system with biomass processing technology being developed under the recently-announced research agreement with INL, to convert raw algae into barrels of renewable crude oil.
We already lead the industry with our chemical-free, low-energy, continuous high-flow harvesting system. From there it’s a natural step to helping algae growers make a direct crude oil replacement right on site, giving them direct access to the existing world market for transportation fuels, including jet fuel. That’s an instant upgrade from what is now a niche market, to the immediate 86 million barrel per day global crude oil market. — Riggs Eckelberry, OriginOil CEO
We are excited to work with OriginOil on its Biocrude System and leverage its algae processing expertise and technology. Algae is a high energy biomass and can function as a force multiplier to blend in other biomass waste such as from forestry and agriculture into a uniform renewable crude oil substitute. This may well support the U.S. military’s strategic fuels diversification program. — Dr. Deborah T. Newby, Project Manager at INL

ADM ending commercial alliance with Metabolix
12 January 2012    Green Car Congress  ( http://www.greencarcongress.com/brief/index.html )
Archer Daniels Midland Company announced today that ADM Polymer Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of ADM, will end its commercial alliance with Metabolix, Inc. on 8 February 2012. As a result of this decision, Telles LLC, the sales and marketing commercial alliance created to commercialize Mirel, a bio-based plastic, will be dissolved, and Mirel production on behalf of Telles will end.
Under the terms of their commercial alliance, ADM Polymer Corporation may provide PHA fermentation services for Metabolix during a three-year period following termination.
We have analyzed our business portfolio, identifying areas that are not delivering sufficient results now or are not expected to deliver sufficient results within a reasonable timeframe. We have had a good working relationship with Metabolix, and the fermentation technology performed well at our facility. Unfortunately, uncertainty around projected capital and production costs, combined with the rate of market adoption, led to projected financial returns for ADM that are too uncertain. Therefore, we have decided to exit the business as permitted by the commercial alliance agreement with Metabolix. —Mark Bemis, president, Corm
ADM Polymer has been producing Mirel at ADM’s integrated corn processing complex facility in Clinton, Iowa. There are currently approximately 90 full-time ADM Polymer employees at the Clinton polymer plant; in addition, there are a small number of ADM employees supporting the Telles sales and marketing efforts in Europe. ADM is currently evaluating the impact on staffing, and will make decisions on its needs as quickly as possible. For colleagues whose positions are affected, the company will offer severance packages, including outplacement services, and there may be opportunities for them to apply for positions at Clinton or other ADM facilities. As a result of the change in circumstances and its decision to terminate the commercial alliance, ADM is evaluating other commercially viable uses for the fermentation assets in Clinton, but has not yet made any firm decision on alternative uses. As a result, ADM will record a one-time pretax charge in its second quarter of between $300 million and $360 million, primarily for impairment of the related production assets. ADM anticipates the cash portion of the total charge to be less than $5 million.

BP joins GE, Google Ventures, ConocoPhillips, and NRG Energy in biomass-to-gasoline startup CoolPlanet’s C Round
29 December 2011  Green Car Congress  ( http://www.greencarcongress.com/brief/index.html ) 
CoolPlanet BioFuels, Inc., a start-up company developing a technology that converts low-grade biomass into high-grade fuels, including gasoline, and carbon that can be sequestered (earlier post) announced that BP Technology Ventures has made an investment in the company’s C Round of financing. CoolPlanet’s renewable gasoline is chemically indistinguishable from gasoline derived from and can only be detected by radiocarbon isotope analysis.
CoolPlanet is developing modular thermal/mechanical processors which directly input raw biomass such as woodchips, crop residue, and algae and produce multiple distinct gas streams for catalytic upgrading to conventional fuel components. The process generates activated carbon with a very high surface area which will allow it to be used as a soil enhancer similar to “terra preta”, which, when buried, serves to sequester the carbon.
The C Round, led by Shea Ventures, included follow-on investments by the company’s current investors, General Electric, Google Ventures, ConocoPhillips, NRG and North Bridge Venture Partners.
In addition to BP and ConocoPhillips, several other energy companies are in the process of testing and evaluating Cool Planet’s fuel with very good results to date, according to the company. The company expects to announce additional energy company strategic relationships throughout 2012.
The company completed its B Round financing in the spring of 2011 and has pulled in its C Round a year ahead of schedule in order to accelerate the development of its modular fuel production plants. CoolPlanet expects to deploy hundreds of relatively low cost modular plants around the country in the next few years to make effective use of available biomass without incurring high transportation costs. CoolPlanet’s Energy Systems Division plans to mass produce these plants on a production line basis. CoolPlanet’s BioFuels division plans to team with various strategic partners to produce fuel using this equipment

Neste Oil holds grand opening of Europe’s largest renewable diesel refinery in Rotterdam
19 December 2011   Green Car Congress  ( http://www.greencarcongress.com/brief/index.html )
Neste Oil celebrated the grand opening of its NExBTL renewable diesel refinery in the Port of Rotterdam. The start-up of the Rotterdam refinery took place in September 2011. The refinery has an annual production capacity of 800,000 metric tons or 1 billion liters (264 million gallons US) [17,200 barrels per day] of renewable diesel and cost around €670 million (US$873 million) to build.
The annual volume produced in Rotterdam will be enough for more than half a million cars to run continuously on pure NExBTL. The emission benefits of the refinery’s output will be equivalent of removing more than a quarter of a million cars from the roads. This means reducing greenhouse gases by a total of more than 1.5 million tons annually. Like Neste Oil’s three other NExBTL plants, the refinery in Rotterdam is ISCC-certified and capable of producing also renewable aviation fuel in the future.
The facility is capable of using Neste Oil’s wide feedstock base consisting of a variety of vegetable oils, by-products of vegetable oil refining (e.g. stearin), as well as waste oils and fats which all meet the sustainability criteria included in the EU Renewable Energy Directive.
The Rotterdam refinery is also capable of utilizing future feedstocks such as algae oil. As a corporate partner in a five-year AlgaePARC project launched in June 2011 and coordinated by Wageningen University and Research Centre in the Netherlands, Neste Oil is involved in developing technologies and processes for growing microalgae on an industrial scale as a raw material for use in fuel, food, and chemical production.
Last week, Neste Oil also announced that it will build a pilot plant to produce waste-based microbial oil at its Porvoo refinery. (Earlier post.) It will be the first pilot plant in Europe designed to produce microbial oil for use in manufacturing renewable fuel from waste-based raw materials.
Neste Oil has a similar-sized facility in Singapore that was completed towards the end of 2010. Furthermore, the company operates two renewable diesel plants at the Porvoo refinery in Finland that came on stream in 2007 and 2009 with a combined capacity of 380,000 metric tons per year.
With the start-up of the Rotterdam refinery, the production capacity of Neste Oil’s renewable diesel refineries totals approximately 2 million metric tons annually which strengthens the company’s position as the world’s leading renewable diesel producer, and helps meet the world’s growing energy needs with low-emission renewable fuel. The main target markets for NExBTL are in Europe and North America.

Ohio EPA Issues Final Permit for Baard Coal/Biomass-to-Liquids Plant
23 November 2008  Green Car Congress  ( http://www.greencarcongress.com/brief/index.html )
The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency has issued the third and final state environmental necessary to the Ohio River Clean Fuels (ORCF) project. Baard Energy will now proceed into final design and construction of the 53,000 barrel per day Coal/Biomass to Liquids plant (CBTL) at the Columbiana County Port Authority site in Wellsville, Ohio. (Earlier post.)
The US Army Corp of Engineers has also issued the only federal permit—the 404 streams and wetlands permit—required for the project.
The Baard project will co-feed the gasifiers with 30% biomass and 70% coal, and capture up to 85% of CO₂. ORCF is developing plans to compress the CO₂ into liquid form and transport it to the neighboring oil fields in Eastern Ohio for Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR).
Co-firing with biomass reduces the CO₂ output of the process. In 2007, the US Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (DOE/NETL) and the US Air Force released a study concluding that a facility capable of producing 7,500 barrels per day or more of jet fuel or diesel from coal and biomass (CBTL), with accompanying 20% lower life-cycle emissions of CO₂ compared to conventional petroleum refining processes, was feasible. (Earlier post.)
According to a year-long study by Idaho National Laboratory also released in 2007, the Baard CBTL fuels will yield 46% less emissions of greenhouse gases than conventional low-sulfur diesel transportation fuels. All emission reductions documented in the study were measured on a wells-to-wheels basis using the Argonne National Lab GREET (Greenhouse Gases, Regulated Emissions, and Energy Use in Transportation) model of transportation fuels (Earlier post.)
The ORCF plant will utilize just more than 20 million gallons per day of water from the Ohio River. More than 80% of the water used is needed for cooling (non-contact cooling water). More than 70% of the water used will be evaporated in cooling towers. About 7,000 gallons per day will be used by the employees (drinking water, showers and restrooms) and will be returned to the Wellsville waste treatment system. The rest of the water (about 30%) will be cleaned to Ohio EPA standards and returned to the Ohio River.
The plant is targeted to produce 50,000 barrels of FT diesel and natpha per day (16 million barrels per year); 3,000 barrels of FT LGP per day (1 million barrels per year); along with 2,000 GWh per year of baseload generation.

DKRW Advanced Fuels signs major off-take contract for 100% of coal-derived gasoline from Medicine Bow project
1 December 2011  Green Car Congress ( http://www.greencarcongress.com/brief/index.html )
DKRW Advanced Fuels LLC subsidiary Medicine Bow Fuel & Power LLC (MBFP), has entered into a contract with Vitol Inc., whereby Vitol would purchase 100% of the gasoline produced from MBFP’s industrial gasification and liquefaction facility located near Medicine Bow, Wyoming. (Earlier post.) The contract is one of the first major commercial agreements in the US for the sale of liquid transport fuels made from coal.
The Medicine Bow project will use Carbon Basin coal optioned from DKRW partner (and coal mine operator) Arch Coal to produce refined hydrocarbon liquid products. Initial commercial operation of up to a 20,000–22,000 barrels per day project is expected to start in 2014.
The coal to liquids (CTL) facility will utilize GE coal gasification technology to produce syngas, which will be cleaned to remove substantially all of the sulfur and carbon dioxide. The cleaned syngas is conditioned, modified and converted to methanol, which is then converted to gasoline via the licensed ExxonMobil Research and Engineering methanol-to-gasoline (MTG) process.
Other key elements include Selexol acid gas removal and Davy Process Technology (methanol synthesis).
MBFP says it plans to sequester the CO₂ that is captured from the facility by selling the CO₂ for enhanced oil recovery (EOR). MBFP earlier this year entered into a contract with a subsidiary of Denbury Resources Inc. to purchase the CO₂ for use in their EOR operations. EOR has been used for years in Wyoming, West Texas and the US Gulf Coast to increase oil production from depleted oil and gas fields.
DKRW Advanced Fuels is completing final development on the project and expects to complete financing activities and ramp up construction on the facility in 2012.
We have received front end engineering and design (FEED) work and are finalizing the overall construction and procurement plan for the project. The project is also in the process of securing a financing package from private and public sources, including the possible use of certain bond programs available for industrial development in the State of Wyoming.
—Robert Kelly, Executive Chairman of DKRW

Dynamotive, IFP Energies nouvelles, Axens, complete binding heads of agreement for commercial development of pyrolysis oil upgrading
30 November 2011
Dynamotive Energy Systems Corporation, IFP Energies nouvelles (IFPEN), Axens and Dr. Desmond Radlein completed heads of agreement for the development, scale-up and commercialization of the company’s proprietary pyrolysis oil upgrading process to produce second-generation biofuels. (Earlier post.)
Renewable Oil Corporation Pty Ltd. (ROC) is a further counterpart of the agreement. ROC rights and participation are subject to completion of certain conditions precedent between the parties.
Under the terms of the agreement IFPEN would continue the development of the process at its facilities in France. Axens would contribute to the final stages of the process development and would commercialize the process once it reaches commercial stages.

Process Highlights:
•The bio-oil is deoxygenated to a sufficient degree to render it miscible with typical refinery feeds, minimizing investments and operating costs.
•Its oxygen content is substantially reduced so that any further hydrogen requirements related to post-treatment in a refinery are strongly decreased to a level suitable with conventional petroleum product upgrading processes.
•The product is essentially water-free as the residual water forms a separate phase.
•The corrosiveness of the product is strongly decreased since most of the organic acids remain in the water phase.

US Oil Exports On The Rise.
In a front-page story, the Wall Street Journal (11/30, A1, Pleven, Gold, Subscription Publication) reports that the US is exporting more gasoline, diesel, and other fuels due to growing demand abroad and decreasing demand domestically, which could make it a net energy exporter in 2011. According to data released by the EIA on Tuesday, the US exported 753.4 million barrels of various fuels in the first nine months of this year, while it imported 689.4 million barrels during the same period. The Journal says this will be the first time since 1949 that the US has exported more fuel than consumed.
 

Tue Nov 22, 2011 6:59pm GMT
Regional demand for liquid fuels to rise
* Commissioning in 2017
* Plan to raise up to $500 mln in Hong Kong IPO in 2012
By Agnieszka Flak

MAPUTO, Nov 22 (Reuters) - South African coal miner LontohCoal plans to build a 50,000 barrels-per-day coal-to-liquids plant in Zimbabwe, with commissioning expected in 2017, its chief executive officer Tshepo Kgadima said on Tuesday.
He said the CTL plant, expected to cost $5.5 billion, would be supplied by thermal coal coming out of the Lubimbi coal project, in which the company holds a 51 percent stake. Lubimbi is expected to produce 27 million tonnes of thermal coal a year.
"We've just completed a scoping study on the coal-to-liquids plant and post our IPO will start spending money on the design and engineering phase ... it's a long-term project, but 2017 is our target commissioning date," Kgadima said.
"We believe by then demand for liquid fuels from the region, especially for diesel, will be big. For Zimbabwe alone it will be more than 2,000 bpd, but there is also increased demand from other landlocked countries in the region," he said.
Kgadima said he did not foresee any difficulties in raising money for the project, even if it is to be based in Zimbabwe, adding political risk in the country was likely to ease.
The company plans to raise up to $500 million when it lists in Hong Kong in early 2012.
The listing had been delayed slightly as the company sought to secure an offtake agreement for a big part of its coal, which Kgadima said would make it more attractive to investors.
LontohCoal decided to have its primary listing in Hong Kong as opposed to Johannesburg given its large exposure to Asia.
"We have a China story. Eighty percent of our (coking coal) production from Zimbabwe and 50 percent of our South African anthracite production is going to China, so Hong Kong is a more natural fit for us," Kgadima said.
The 18 million tonnes of coking coal per year expected from the Lubimbi deposit in Zimbabwe would be exported, most of it destined for China, he added.
The coking coal will be moved via a coal-slurry pipeline to a deep-water port in Mozambique. The cost for the development of the pipeline and the port is forecast at $1.2 billion.
LontohCoal's Kwasa anthracite mine in South Africa produces 40,000 tonnes per month, but is being ramped up to around 100,000 tonnes a month. Its Hlobane View colliery is being developed to produce 1.2 million tonnes of coal per year and will later be ramped up to produce 1.8 million tonnes. (Editing by Jmes Jukwey)
© Thomson Reuters 2011 All rights reserved

GTL - Pearl GTL Inauguration .pdf 

First Pearl GTL product shipment reaches US: synthetic base oil
24 November 2011  Green Car Congress   ( http://www.greencarcongress.com/brief/index.html )
Shell Lubricants announced the arrival of its first shipment of gas-to-liquid (GTL) base oil at the Port of Houston. The product, the first from the Qatar-based Pearl GTL plant to reach the Americas, will be stored at a hub in Houston and routed to Shell Lubricants’ GTL-enabled blending facilities throughout the United States.
Shell Lubricants will use Pearl GTL base oil, a Group III base oil, in the manufacture of its premium motor oils. Group III base oils are the foundation for formulating next-generation oils that address needs for improved energy efficiency, longer equipment life and reduced maintenance costs.
Pearl GTL, a partnership between Royal Dutch Shell and Qatar Petroleum, has built the world’s largest gas-to-liquids plant in Ras Laffan Industrial City, Qatar. (Earlier post.) The plant uses natural gas from Qatar’s North Field to manufacture high-quality base oils and other GTL products. Once the Pearl GTL plant is operating at full capacity, it will be one of the world’s largest sources of lubricant base oils with the capacity to produce about 30,000 barrels per day, enough to fill 225 million cars per year. Shell will be the only oil major capable of meeting all of its Group III base oil needs from internal sources.
Compared to typical base oils refined from crude oil, GTL base oils represent an alternative starting point for the manufacture of finished lubricants. Within the range of commercially available base oils, Group III oils have high viscosity index, low volatility and good low-temperature fluidity and are often used to make synthetic motor oils. Shell GTL base oil usage will be an essentially invisible change to Shell Lubricants’ existing premium formulations, although in some cases lubricants using GTL base oil may appear lighter in color.
Pearl comprises two offshore platforms, 60 km off the Qatar coast connected by pipeline to the largest gas-to-liquids (GTL) plant ever built. Shell operates the Pearl GTL plant, which was developed under a Development and Production Sharing Agreement with the Government of the State of Qatar. The plant was brought into production in May 2011 and converts the gas and oxygen to GTL wax. In the last step of the process, the waxes are cracked and distilled into finished GTL products.

Wyoming legislators approve bill providing $10M for coal or natural gas to liquids FEED study

31 October 2011 - Green Car Congress

Billings Gazette. The Wyoming Legislature’s Joint Minerals, Business and Economic Development Interim Committee recently approved a bill providing up to $10 million in matching funds to fund one or more front-end engineering and design (FEED) studies to determine the feasibility of constructing and operating a commercial scale facility which converts coal or natural gas to liquid fuels.

http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/wyoming/article_c5ea34fb-aac2-5edd-a0d5-9a64ff94e631.html     CTL - FEED - 12LSO-0054.C1.pdf 

A representative of a company seeking to develop one such facility applauded the committee’s decision. Cary Brus of Casper-based Nerd Gas Co., which is planning a $1.7 billion natural gas-to-gasoline facility possibly located by Lake DeSmet, said the proposed funding could help developers make a better pitch to potential partners and financiers. 

The funding is part of a broader state effort to promote new uses for Wyoming's coal and natural gas reserves. On Thursday, the committee approved a move to change the name of the state’s Clean Coal Research Task Force, which funds coal research, to the Advanced Conversion Technologies Task Force. The name change and a shift in the task force’s mission allows the group to fund conversion projects such as the minerals-to-liquids facilities instead of just research into how to use the state’s coal in a more environmentally friendly way.

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