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Asif Iqbal
Doha
The world's largest gas-to-liquids (GTL) plant, Shell's Pearl GTL in Ras Laffan Industrial City, is currently operating at a reduced rate of production due to"unforeseen" maintenance required on some or all of the plant's 18 gasifier units.
The fully-integrated facility has capacity for production, processing and transportation of 1.6 billion standard cubic feet/day of gas from the North Field.
It has an installed capacity of about 140,000 barrels of oil equivalent/day (boe/d) of high-quality liquid hydrocarbon products and 120,000 boe/d of natural gas liquids and ethane.
"Repairs are already underway and operations at Pearl will continue at a reduced rate until they are completed," a spokesperson for Shell was quoted in Energy Voice magazine as saying.
"Shell is currently carrying out technical assessments to determine when the plant will return to full production. In the meantime, Pearl is producing at approximately 50 percent of its capacity."
The spokesperson further said the Pearl had a volume of GTL products in storage and Shell would work closely with customers to minimise impacts to supplies.
Meanwhile, a statement from the company said safety and asset reliability remain Shell's"highest priorities".
Developed in partnership with Qatar Petroleum, the Pearl Gas-to-Liquids (GTL) plant is a fully integrated upstream-downstream development, capturing in one operating business the full gas value chain from offshore development through onshore gas processing, the conversion of gas to hydrocarbon liquids, and the refining to finished products.
The Pearl GTL plant has 24 reactors, weighing 1,200 tonnes apiece. They each contain 29,000 tubes full of Shell's cobalt synthesis catalyst, which speeds up the chemical reaction.
Construction of Pearl GTL was completed on schedule with the complex starting towards the end of first quarter of 2011. Full ramp-up was achieved towards the end of 2012.
Pearl GTL products are virtually sulphur-free and have practically no contaminants such as heavy metals or aromatics. Their paraffinic chemical nature ensures that they are highly biodegradable and almost odourless.
When GTL Gasoil is used in automotive applications such as buses it can help improve local air quality, such as soot (particulates) emissions, when compared to the use of conventional diesel fuel.
In 2009, Qatar Airways, for the first time in the world, operated an Airbus A340-600 on a budget flight powered by gas-to-liquid (GTL) kerosene.
The GTL technology provides an alternative route for natural gas monetisation, offering full upside to higher oil prices. Over the lifetime of the project, Pearl GTL will process about 3 billion barrels of oil equivalent of gas.
Since 2006, Shell has invested over $20 billion in Qatar and is the largest foreign investor in the country.
