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Pearl GTL - an overview
Pearl GTL is a world-scale project located in Ras Laffan Industrial City, 80 km north of Doha, Qatar. When operating at full capacity, Pearl GTL is the world’s largest source of gas-to-liquids (GTL) products, capable of producing 140,000 barrels of GTL products each day. The plant can also produce 120,000 barrels of oil per day of natural gas liquids and ethane.
Key facts
| Location: | Qatar, Ras Laffan Industrial City |
| Category: | Integrated gas and gas-to-liquids project |
| Ownership: | Development and Production Sharing Agreement with Government of the State Qatar, 100% Shell funding |
| Operator: | Shell |
| Development cost: | $18 billion-$19 billion |
| Peak: Production: |
1,6 bcf/d of gas resulting in: - 140 kbo/d of gas-to-liquids products (2 trains) - 120 kbo/d of natural gas liquids and ethane |
| Total production: | 3 billion boe of natural gas over the life of the project |
| Key contractors: | JGC/KBR joint venture |
Current developments
Construction at the Pearl GTL project, Qatar, 2010
The Pearl GTL project is being developed in two phases, after major construction was completed at the end of 2010. The first phase started up in early 2011 and exported the first commercial shipment of gasoil in June 2011. Phase 1 is almost completely ramped up. Phase 2 of the plant started up in early November 2011 by bringing in sour gas from offshore wells. The whole plant is currently ramping up towards full production by mid-2012.
Upstream, the project will produce and process around 1.6 billion cubic feet a day of wellhead gas from the world’s largest single non-associated gas field, the North Field, which stretches from Qatar’s coast out into the Gulf. The plant will process about three billion barrels-of-oil-equivalent over its lifetime. The offshore scope includes 22 development wells, two unmanned wellhead platforms in about 30 metres of water and two 30-inch pipelines running about 60 km to shore.
Onshore gas-processing facilities will treat the sour, rich wellhead gas to remove contaminants such as metals and sulphur and further extract natural gas liquids: ethane for petrochemical processes, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) for domestic heating and cooking and condensates as a feedstock for refineries. Elemental sulphur produced as a by-product is turned into pellets and shipped to the nearest market to make hydrosulphuric acid, fertiliser or other valuable products. The pure gas, or methane, that remains then flows to the GTL section of the plant, where it is combined with oxygen and converted in a state of the art three-stage process into a range of gas-to-liquids products using Shell proprietary technology.
Technology
The proprietary Shell Middle Distillate Synthesis (SMDS) process is at the heart of the two-train Pearl GTL plant. Developed over more than three decades, the process has been proven on a commercial scale at the 14,700-barrel-per-day Bintulu GTL plant in Malaysia, which began operation in 1993. Shell has over 3,500 patents at all stages of the GTL process. The Bintulu experience helped improve the chemical catalysts integral to the SMDS process. These improvements will reduce unit capital expenditure, allow faster processing and should enable Shell to produce greater volumes of fuel and other products at Pearl.
The plant includes systems to capture energy given off during the processes, converting it to steam that drives the plant’s compressors and generates electricity.
The largest water recycling plant of its kind treats water for re-use in steam production and cooling. It can process 45,000m3 per day of water, without discharging any liquids from the plant.
Markets
Building on its extensive experience marketing GTL products from Bintulu, Shell will export Pearl’s high value, differentiated premium products, including GTL gasoil, kerosene, naphtha, normal paraffin and base oils for lubricants, to markets around the globe.
Environment and society
Together with Qatargas 4, Pearl GTL represents a multi-billion dollar commitment to Qatar by Shell and the project is being developed in line with our sustainable development principles.
The project has been designed to use technology that will help to limit any environmental impact. The facility is designed to use every drop of water as part of our approach to not release any liquids from the plant. Pearl GTL’s industrial water processing plant is the world’s largest, recovering, treating and re-using all the industrial process water. With a capacity to treat 280,000 barrels a day of water, Pearl GTL’s water treatment plant is comparable to that for a city of 140,000 people.
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