What is Gas to Liquids?
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The conversion of natural gas into liquid fuels is an attractive option to commercialise abundant gas reserves. Gas to Liquids (GTL), with virtually unlimited markets, offers a new way to unlock remote gas reserves, complementary to other traditional technologies such as Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) and pipelines.
GTL conversion is an umbrella term for a group of technologies that can create liquid synthetic fuels from a variety of feedstocks.
The basic technology was developed in Germany in the 1920s, and is known as the Fischer-Tropsch process after its inventors. In essence it uses catalytic reactions to synthesise complex hydrocarbons from simpler organic chemicals. This process can create identical liquids from a variety of feedstocks, although the technical challenges are greater for biomass and coal.
Shell has pioneered the development of Gas to Liquids technology and has operated a medium scale GTL plant at Bintulu, Malaysia since 1993, that has current capacity of 14,700 bbl/day. With a decade of operating experience at the Bintulu plant, Shell technologists have the confidence to scale up to a worldscale 140,000 bbl/day GTL plant planned to be operational in Qatar towards the end of the decade.