Gas-to-Liquids Outlook
Rising construction, material and labor costs have either shelved or postponed several major gas-to-liquids (GTL) projects. Notwithstanding that fact, Shell’s Pearl GTL project is progressing with the building of the harbor and the gathering of material and supplies onsite at Ras Laffan Industrial City. Despite today’s challenging construction environment, Pearl GTL appears to be on schedule, with start-up of the first train expected around the end of the decade. Some twenty thousand workers are now constructing the plant, and certain major plant equipment items have been installed, including the first three 1,200-metric-ton GTL reactors, which arrived at the site during January 2008.
Pearl GTL will be the world’s largest GTL plant, converting natural gas into 140,000 b/d of transportation fuel and other products. The project will also produce 120,000 BOE equivalent per day of natural gas liquids and ethane.
Other developments are also worth noting:
- The 34,000-b/d Oryx-1 GTL plant shipped its first clean-diesel cargo in April 2007; however, it continues to operate at only 9,000 b/d until catalyst problems are remedied.
- Sasol-Chevron’s Escravos GTL plant is under construction in Nigeria, with modules being built in Abu Dhabi and shipped to the site.
- Chevron’s Wheatstone natural gas field offshore Australia will also likely be developed to supply a GTL plant being developed by Syntroleum and Kuwati Oil in Papua New Guinea.
- World GTL’s 2,000-tpd GTL plant at Petrotrin’s refinery in Trinidad is being developed to produce clean diesel that will meet stricter domestic air-emissions regulations.
At present, what industry activity there is appears to be shifting toward small- and medium-scale GTL and methanol projects to monetize stranded natural gas accumulations with proved reserves of less that 3.0 Tcf. To be competitive, plants will need to be scalable to smaller footprints. Improvements to GTL and Fisher-Tropsch technologies are continuing, for example, with PetroSA’s research activities and pilot plant operations underway in South Africa. The state oil company, working in conjunction with others, hopes to hatch the next generation of GTL processes. |
