Shell: world's biggest gas-to-liquids plant to start soon

Reuters ^ | Jun 7, 2011 | Reuters

[thackney]

World's largest gas-to-liquids project to start in weeks

* Developed by Shell, Qatar Petroleum at a cost of $18-$19 bln

* Plant to produce fuels such as diesel, kerosene, naphtha (Adds decline in Malaysian field ouput, details on renewables)

Royal Dutch Shell expects oil product output at its joint venture gas-to-liquids project in Qatar to start in weeks, bringing online the world's biggest facility built at a cost of about $18-$19 billion.

"It's very exciting because it's a huge start-up," Vice President for Strategy Dick Benschop told reporters at an industry event in the Malaysian capital. "The first crude is there and the product will be there soon."

The project is Shell's second. Natural gas will account for half of Shell's output this year as more companies tap this resource to meet rising energy demand as oil becomes more difficult and expensive to produce.

Plant operator Shell said in March it had started output from natural gas wells offshore, allowing the first sour gas to flow through a subsea pipeline into the giant GTL plant onshore.

"Every production is commercial, but there will be a ramp-up," Benschop said.

Pearl, a joint development by Qatar Petroleum and Shell, will process about 3 billion barrels-of-oil-equivalent over its lifetime from the huge North Field stretching from the Qatari coast into the Gulf.

The plant will produce 140,000 barrels per day (bpd) of oil products such as diesel, kerosene, lubricant oils, naphtha and paraffin.

The Pearl GTL plant should come on line by the end of the year and reach full capacity in the first quarter of 2012, Tasweeq's CEO told Reuters on Sunday.

[IamConservative]

Hope the net result is lower prices on Diesel.

(”gas to liquids”; sounds like what happens to me if I eat at Taco Bell..)

[thackney]

http://www.shell.com/home/content/aboutshell/our_strategy/major_projects_2/pearl/gtl_products/

GTL Gasoil is a diesel-type fuel that will help diversify the supply of diesel fuels and can help to local emissions. It can be blended easily with conventional, oil-based diesel and used in the existing diesel distribution system. Shell has already blended some GTL Gasoil from our plant in Bintulu, Malaysia, into the Shell V-Power Diesel we sell to customers at more than 5,000 sites in Europe and Thailand.

Following ramp up Pearl GTL will produce approximately 50,000 barrels of GTL gasoil per day, enough to fill over 160,000 cars every day. Most of the GTL gasoil produced at Pearl GTL will be used as a high quality blend component with conventional oil-based diesel and supplied through the existing diesel distribution system across the world.

GTL Gasoil burns with lower sulphur dioxide, lower nitrogen oxides and particulate emissions than conventional oil-based diesel. This means that if used at higher concentrations it can help improve local air quality. Trials in heavily congested cities such as London, Berlin, Tokyo and Shanghai have shown that buses, taxis and trucks running on high concentrations of GTL gasoil can contribute to improved local air quality.

GTL Gasoil can also be used by refineries to upgrade heavier fuel products. This is because of two of its technical properties: it has a lower density and higher cetane number than conventional diesel.

GTL Kerosene

GTL Kerosene can be used for heating and lighting but its main use will be for aviation, increasing the range of fuels for aircraft. GTL Kerosene burns with lower sulphur dioxide, lower nitrogen oxides and particulate emissions than conventional oil-based kerosene. At higher concentrations it can help improve air quality at busy airports.

A Qatar Airways Airbus A340 made the first commercial passenger flight using a 50-50 blend of GTL and conventional jet fuel in October 2009. The blend used is known as GTL Jet Fuel.

Shell is working in partnership with Qatar Airways, Qatar Petroleum, WOQOD, Airbus, Rolls-Royce and the Qatar Science and Technology Park to research the potential benefits of synthetic aviation fuel in aviation engines.

GTL Base Oils

GTL Base oils can be used for the manufacture of lubricants that keep vehicle engines, gearboxes and transmissions operating smoothly. Following ramp-up, the Pearl GTL project will be one of the world’s largest sources of lubricant base oil with the capacity to produce about 30,000 barrels per day, enough to fill 225 million cars per year.

GTL Normal Paraffin

GTL Normal Paraffin is used in the production of detergents such as washing powder and soap. Traditionally detergent manufacturing companies extract conventional normal paraffin from oil-based kerosene and return the remaining kerosene to refineries. GTL Normal Paraffin eliminates this need for the extraction stage of the conventional production process and so offers companies cost and location advantages.

GTL Naphtha

GTL Naphtha is an alternative feedstock to conventional naphtha for chemicals plants that make the building blocks for plastics. It has much higher paraffin content than conventional naphtha, which means each litre of GTL Naphtha can produce more plastics.

GTL products use Shell’s leading technology to create cost-effective products for our customers which are cleaner-burning than their conventional counterparts and have improved performance. We plan to use Shell’s world class downstream trading and marketing capabilities to maximise the value of GTL products for both Qatar Petroleum and Shell.

[Flavius]

They need 10,000 of them

[Erik Latranyi]

...as oil becomes more difficult and expensive to produce.

Thank you, socialists and islamists, who have united together to destroy the western world.

[Stonewall Jackson]

I know that the Medicine Bow (Wyoming) Coal-To-Liquids facility just came online back in Dec. It is producing 14,000 barrels of ultra-clean diesel per day.

In addition, they are working on a gasoline facility that should be complete in late 2013 that will produce 22,000-24,000 barrels of ultra-clean gasoline per day.

A neat thing about these facilities is that they are self contained, running on energy they produce. All of the waste products, ash, CO2, etc..., are sold for a profit. The only thing you have to add is coal.

[Red Badger]

Rest In Peace, old friend, your work is finished.....

If you want ON or OFF the DIESEL ”KnOcK” LIST just FReepmail me.....

This is a fairly HIGH VOLUME ping list on some days.....

[Red Badger]

The only thing you have to add is coal.

I knew there was a catch................

[thackney]

Ha, Ha,

A few hundred would be fine.

635 of them would match the entire world’s oil production.

[thackney]

Do you have link for information showing them running? Their company website appears they are a few years away.

Medicine Bow Fuel & Power LLC
http://www.dkrwaf.com/fw/main/Medicine-Bow-111.html

DKRW Advanced Fuels is working with leading industry and financial partners to develop a greenfield, mine-mouth, coal-to-Liquids (CTL) facility in Medicine Bow, Wyoming. The project will use Carbon Basin coal optioned from our partner (and coal mine operator) Arch Coal to produce refined hydrocarbon liquid products that meet critical energy needs in an environmentally responsible manner. Initial commercial operation of up to a 20,000 - 22,000 barrels per day project is expected to start in 2014.

[Lumper20]

Let’s also thank the likes of Al Gore and his global warming junk science.

[DaxtonBrown]

“A neat thing about these facilities is that they are self contained, running on energy they produce.”

Karl Denninger had a great aricle about extracting the thorium from coal power plant fly ash and using it in thorium nuclear reactors to create heat for coal and natural gas liquifaction.

We still need gasoline becaue of its energy density, electric cars just won’t do.

[IamConservative]

A neat thing about these facilities is that they are self contained, running on energy they produce. All of the waste products, ash, CO2, etc..., are sold for a profit. The only thing you have to add is coal.

Frustrating that in the presence of these fabulous alternative fuels, our government focuses on Ethanol, wind and solar. Hopefully, market forces will be strong enough to prevail.

[Stonewall Jackson]

That’s the gasoline facility that they’ve just started construction on. I’m at work on my I-phone right now, but I’ll post the links to the other info when I get home and can get them off my desktop.

[Flavius]

This is why we are all in hell ,
Did not realize it’s such a low #

We all deserve what we got

[Stonewall Jackson]

Blast. The last article I'd read was from 2009, and the projected start up date was the 3rd quarter of 2010. Then the EPA got involved and forced them to redo a bunch of their production facility, so the diesel plant will not be ready until the 1st quarter of 2014 and the gasoline plant following quickly in the 2nd quarter.

The good news is that they are going to use the down time to expand the facility, so it will produce around 35,000 barrels each of diesel and gasoline per day. Unfortunately, this is less than one half of one percent of US consumption each day. But there are fifteen to twenty similar plants being constructed (or under consideration) in Nevada, Montana, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Twenty plants would equal ten percent of our daily diesel and gasoline consumption, which would go a long way toward making us self-sufficient.

The extraction design is from New Zealand and is extremely efficient, but not efficient enough for the EPA. So they are having to tear everything out, redesign it to fit government requirements, and then reinstall it. You'd almost think they were trying to deep six the whole project.

[thackney]

I figured 89 million barrels per day divided by 140 thousand barrels per day.

But those 635 facilities would cost about $12 trillion dollars, big money even with an Obama spending sized measuring stick.

[thackney]

You'd almost think they were trying to deep six the whole project.

Like the government did with nuclear power in the country? Quite likely.

[thackney]

Thank you. I found similar information from the planning stages but nothing showing actual progress. I appreciate you checking.

[Conservativegreatgrandma]

Too bad Obama and the Democrats deliberately prevent us from producing and refining right here in the good ole USA.