Within the next few months, Shell’s multimillion-dollar investment – the Pearl GTL – will begin producing fuel. This gas-to-liquids plant located at Ras Laffan is being jointly developed by state-owned Qatar Petroleum (QP) and Shell, and once completed, will be the world’s largest source of GTL products, able to produce 140,000 barrels per day.
Additionally, the plant will be able to produce 120,000 barrels of oil equivalent daily of natural gas liquids and ethane.
Shell is a pioneer in this realm, having built the first GTL pilot plant in 1983 in Amsterdam as well as the first commercial-scale plant 10 years later in Bintulu, Malaysia. Furthermore, although over the past 35 years of GTL development Shell has filed some 3,500 patents, the company’s world-scale undertaking in Qatar is bringing new discoveries and challenges.
| working with qatari companies, s hell has launched the country’s 14th lng train and will soon begin production at pearl gtl, a global landmark project |
“Throughout the Pearl GTL plant you see new breakthroughs, sometimes in technology, but also in scale,” explains Andrew Brown, executive vice president of Shell. “Some of our utilities systems are some of the largest the world has ever seen, be it oxygen manufacturing or steam systems, or water treatment facilities.”
The advantages of GTL are manifold. Despite being a capital intensive activity, the conversion of gas to liquid facilitates its transportation, commands a higher price, and is of a higher quality than conventional fuel.
While the Pearl GTL plant is still a thing of the future, albeit the near future, Shell can already boast a huge achievement for 2011. In early February, Qatargas produced the first batch of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from its new Train 7 plant (dubbed Qatargas 4) where Shell holds a 30% share, marking the moment all 14 of the country’s LNG trains went up and running.
This cargo was then delivered to Shell’s Hazira LNG terminal in India. Shell is also providing operation and maintenance services to run the Nakilat fleet of 25 LNG tankers.
Train 7 has raised Qatargas’ overall production capacity to 42 MTA, and by extension, has raised Qatar’s production to well over the 77-MTA mark so proudly celebrated in December. And it is the country’s drive, among other reasons, that attracted Shell to Qatar in the first place “[Qatar] is an extraordinarily important resource holder – with 900 trillion cubic feet of gas it holds almost 15% of the world’s proven reserves. That is the first and foremost reason as to why we want to invest here. When we came here we found excellent infrastructure and also I think there is a very good business environment in which to invest the money,” explains Mr. Brown.
“The country has ambition and we like that. And that means that we can bring over our cutting-edge technology.”
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