Sasol to launch first commercial-scale GTL plant in Qatar
Posted: 24 April 2006
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Sasol is set to launch the world's first commercial-scale gas-to-liquids (GTL) plant in Qatar on June 6, pumping 34,000 barrels per day of diesel.
The start-up of Oryx – arguably the world’s first truly commercial GTL plant and certainly the first to be project-financed – will mark the birth of an industry that has seen many false starts.
The start and end points are highly symbolic: the partners in the Oryx GTL venture are Qatar Petroleum, with a stake of 51%, and South Africa’s Sasol, which holds the remaining 49%.
Sasol’s chief executive, Pat Davis, said the Oryx partners wanted to show the world that its new GTL diesel burns significantly cleaner and exceeds every performance standard of conventional oil-derived diesel fuel.
One of the five vehicles in the convoy, a Toyota Hilux Raider, will be fuelled from beginning to end with GTL diesel manufactured at Sasol’s pilot plant at Sasolburg.
The plant uses the same low-temperature Fischer-Tropsch process employed by Oryx: Sasol’s proprietary Slurry Phase Distillate (SPD) technology. However, Oryx GTL will be the first time that the process has been used at commercial scale.
Oryx will produce liquid fuels from natural gas and will be run in partnership with Qatar Petroleum, while oil major Chevron will do most of the marketing in Europe and North America under the joint Sasol Chevron brand.
Posted by Editor Pipeline Magazine
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