About Gas to Liquids (GTL)

Gas to Liquids (GTL) is the process that converts natural gas to a diesel
like fuel (FT diesel).  The process is scalable and can be applied to to
both large and small deposits of natural gas.

The future for the technology lies mainly with natural gas - in particular,
low-cost remote natural gas or gas associated with oil production that is
now flared, but does not justify the cost and scale of liquefied natural
gas (LNG) facilities or a pipeline.  In these cases, GTL offers an
economical way to convert the gas to liquid fuels or a refinery feedstock
that can be readily transported.

The processes produces diesel like fuel with an energy density

comparable to conventional diesel, a higher cetane number permitting
superior performance, low aromatic content and a very low sulfur
content.  Conventional diesel fuel has increasingly unacceptable
particulate matter in its emissions composed of unburnt carbon and
aromatics, and compounds of sulfur.  The low sulfur content of Fischer-
Tropsch (FT) diesel, leads to significant reductions in particulate matter
and the low aromatic content reduces the toxicity of the particulate
matter.

The GTL process is composed of three steps:

1. Reforming of natural gas to produce a synthesis gas (syngas) that

has a hydrogen:carbon monoxide ratio of approximately 2:1.  The
syngas step converts the natural gas to hydrogen and carbon
monoxide by partial oxidation, steam reforming or a combination
of the two processes. 
2. The resulting syngas is fed to the Fischer-Tropsch reactor and
converted to mostly straight-chain, waxy paraffins in the presence
of a catalyst. The catalyst is either iron or cobalt based and the
reaction is highly exothermic. The temperature, pressure and
catalyst determine whether a light or heavy syncrude is
produced.  For example at 330C with an iron catalyst mostly
gasoline and olefins are produced whereas at 180 to 250C with a
cobalt catalyst mostly diesel and waxes are produced.   
3. The high molecular weight liquid products can be hydro-cracked
in a simple low-pressure process to produce naphtha, kerosene
and diesel that are virtually free of sulfur and aromatics; These
 derivative fuels are therefore potentially more valuable, notably in
the US, Europe and Japan with high environmental standards.

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Until the last few of years diesel from GTL wasn't competitive at oil
prices below $35/bbl. Today it is claimed that it can compete with $20
oil. Forbes 5/24/04

Presently there are only three GTL facilities have operated to produce
synthetic petroleum liquids at more than a demonstration level: the
Mossgas Plant (South Africa), with output capacity of 23 000 barrels per
day, Shell Binemerging Bintulu (Malaysia) at 20 000 barrels per day and
the subsidized methanol to gasoline project in New Zealand.(Emerging
Technologies to Develop Stranded Gas