Gas-to-liquids diesel fuel is hitting its stride in endurance events. It’s zooming to victory on a French racetrack and fueling an overland vehicle on a 10,000-km trek across South Africa to Qatar for the ceremonial opening of the Oryx GTL plant.
A race formula using Shell V-Power diesel blended with GTL diesel powered Audi Sport to victory in the 24 Hours of Le Mans race last month. Royal Dutch Shell PLC produced the GTL diesel at its Bintulu plant in Malaysia.
It was the first time a vehicle using diesel won the flashy endurance race. The winning Audi R10 TDI completed 380 laps, and the clean-burning fuel was credited with the ability of winning drivers to make fewer pit stops than drivers using oil-based fuel.
Separately, a Toyota Hilux ran on GTL diesel from Sasolburg to Doha during the 6-week Sasol Chevron GTL Challenge, an event associated with Oryx GTL Ltd.’s inauguration of the $950 million plant.
Royal Dutch Shell PLC operates a GTL plant in Bintulu, Malaysia. Photo from Shell.
The Hilux ran on GTL diesel made at Sasol Ltd.’s Sasolburg plant, which processes gas from Mozambique. Oryx uses a proprietary, low-temperature Sasol slurry phase distillate process based on Fischer-Tropsch technology (OGJ, June 12, 2006, Newsletter).
Oryx will convert 330 MMcfd of lean gas from Qatar’s North field into 34,000 b/d of ultralow-sulfur diesel, 24,000 b/d of diesel, 9,000 b/d of naphtha, and 1,000 b/d of LPG. Sales of the products in Europe and Asia will start later this year.
GTL capital
Qatar’s Oil Minister Abdullah Bin Hamad al-Attiyah has said his homeland, endowed with vast gas reserves, hopes to become the GTL capital of the world.
A report last year by the Centre for Global Energy Studies, London, about GTL trade said Qatar probably will become the leading exporter. By 2010, Qatar is expected to have a capacity of 800,000 b/d of ultralow-sulfur diesel, naphtha, and high-quality base stocks, CGES said (OGJ, Aug. 1, 2005, p. 18).
Planners envision expanding Oryx capacity to 100,000 b/d. The Oryx plant is a joint venture of state-owned Qatar Petroleum, 51%, and Sasol of Johannesburg, 49%.
Two other GTL plants are planned to start in Qatar, the Shell-Qatar Petroleum Pearl GTL project in 2010 and a Qatar Petroleum-ExxonMobil Corp. 145,000 b/d capacity plant in 2011 (OGJ, Apr. 24, 2006, p. 20).
Diesel sales
Although it’s not the GTL diesel formula used at Le Mans, Shell sells V-Power diesel at 5,000 service stations in Europe, where diesel is the dominant vehicle fuel. In the US, where gasoline is the main vehicle fuel, GTL diesel is attracting interest as a supplement to diesel supply.
The California Energy Commission (CEC) offers a synthetic diesel fuel fact sheet, saying GTL diesel could be blended with conventional diesel to extend California’s fuel supplies.
“An opportunity exists to use GTL fuels in California and reduce the emissions from old diesel vehicles, especially school buses,” the CEC said.
The US Energy Information Administration listed capital costs for GTL plants at $25,000-45,000/b/d of capacity, depending on production scale and site selection. Those costs are in 2004 dollars.
An industry goal is to reduce GTL capital costs below $20,000/b/d, but rising steel prices and higher process equipment costs make it difficult, EIA said in its Annual Energy Outlook 2006 with projections to 2030.
“By comparison, the cost of a conventional petroleum refinery is around $15,000/b/d,” EIA said, adding that a 34,000-b/d GTL plant is roughly equivalent to a 100,000-b/d grassroots refinery in terms of engineering and construction metrics.