Shell sees start-up of joint Qatar GTL project 'soon'
June 7, 2011
Eric Watkins
OGJ Oil Diplomacy Editor
LOS ANGELES, June 7 -- Royal Dutch Shell PLC expects oil product output to start in weeks at its $18-19 billion Pearl gas-to-liquids project, the world’s largest GTL facility, jointly owned with Qatar Petroleum.
In March, Shell announced that it had started production from natural gas wells offshore, allowing the first sour gas to flow through a subsea pipeline into the giant GTL plant onshore (OGJ Online, Mar. 23, 2011).
Once fully operational, Pearl will produce 1.6 bcfd of gas from North field, which will be processed to generate 120,000 b/d of condensate and NGLs and 140,000 b/d of GTL products.
According to Shell, Qatar will lead the world in producing GTL kerosine starting in 2012, when the first commercial quantities from Pearl GTL are to be produced.
Pearl will produce about 1 million tonnes/year, "enough to power a typical commercial airliner for half a billion kilometers," the company said (OGJ Online, Jan. 11, 2010).
Contact Eric Watkins at [email protected].
