[Tanada]

Hi, I read in the following article that Gas-to-liquids are economic when oil is above US$20.

GTL On Verge of Coming-of-Age?
http://www.aapg.org/explorer/2003/09sep/gastoliquid.cfm

Does anyone know whether this is vaguely correct? And if this is true, then why are there not more GTL plants coming on line? Is it because the industry thinks that there's enough conventional oil out there? Or because it thinks that oil prices will fall steeply over the medium to long term?

one explaination could be that the situation with natural gas in unclear as well. Is there any extra natural gas out there?

For decades now they have been debating the pro's and con's of building a GTL plant in Prudho Bay Alaska, there is a lot of stranded gas ther which has been reinjected into the oil fields after seperation. If they convert the G to L they can ship it down the same pipeline built for the crude, as it is the gas is stuck where it is now.

[NEOPO]

Hi, I read in the following article that Gas-to-liquids are economic when oil is above US$20.

What..... you find that link and 1000 others like it involving bio voodoo and other such sorcery proficiently enough yet you cannot find anything more recent then 2003 on this particular "hook" hmmm

I just want to know if that US$20 price was in 2003 inflation adjusted dollars or some other hyperbole

[lorenzo]

Hi, I read in the following article that Gas-to-liquids are economic when oil is above US$20.

What..... you find that link and 1000 others like it involving bio voodoo and other such sorcery

Mm, the article is from the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, seen by most as an organisation that knows what it's talking about.

(You call it voodoo all you want, no problem, you call everything that doesn't reek of Peak Oil propaganda sorcery. Remember it: you're the odd one out, not the AAPG. A cult member calling rational people 'sorcerers' -- fairly standard psychopathology of sect members... )

I just want to know if that US$20 price was in 2003 inflation adjusted dollars or some other hyperbole

I took the september 2003 number because that's when oil prices suddenly started to rise, and when the AAPG found it interesting to give a broad overview of the issue.

Inflation has not risen that much since 2003, has it? (I know that the US$20 number doesn't suit your doomer case, so you're trying to talk about the entirely irrelevant issue of inflation here. No problem, go ahead, it doesn't change the fundamentals. Nothing PO freaks say changes any fundamentals, ever.)

Let's be kind though, NEOPO, and let me ask why you think the American Association of Petroleum Geologists writes that GTL is competitive with oil at US$20 (or adjusted for inflation: oil at US$ 25).

[sch_peakoiler]

Hi, I read in the following article that Gas-to-liquids are economic when oil is above US$20.

GTL On Verge of Coming-of-Age?
http://www.aapg.org/explorer/2003/09sep/gastoliquid.cfm

Does anyone know whether this is vaguely correct? And if this is true, then why are there not more GTL plants coming on line? Is it because the industry thinks that there's enough conventional oil out there? Or because it thinks that oil prices will fall steeply over the medium to long term?

one explaination could be that the situation with natural gas in unclear as well. Is there any extra natural gas out there?

For decades now they have been debating the pro's and con's of building a GTL plant in Prudho Bay Alaska, there is a lot of stranded gas ther which has been reinjected into the oil fields after seperation. If they convert the G to L they can ship it down the same pipeline built for the crude, as it is the gas is stuck where it is now.

If they debate pros and cons for decades, this could mean only one thing! Nobody needs the plant:)

[NEOPO]

Hi, I read in the following article that Gas-to-liquids are economic when oil is above US$20.

GTL On Verge of Coming-of-Age?
http://www.aapg.org/explorer/2003/09sep/gastoliquid.cfm

Does anyone know whether this is vaguely correct? And if this is true, then why are there not more GTL plants coming on line? Is it because the industry thinks that there's enough conventional oil out there? Or because it thinks that oil prices will fall steeply over the medium to long term?

one explaination could be that the situation with natural gas in unclear as well. Is there any extra natural gas out there?

For decades now they have been debating the pro's and con's of building a GTL plant in Prudho Bay Alaska, there is a lot of stranded gas ther which has been reinjected into the oil fields after seperation. If they convert the G to L they can ship it down the same pipeline built for the crude, as it is the gas is stuck where it is now.

If they debate pros and cons for decades, this could mean only one thing! Nobody needs the plant:)

You said it!
He get's the G to the L yet the 1+1 is far too complicated

A sect? And there I was thinking it was a cult!!!

Lorenzo - Imagine that I have read many of your 1688 posts here bud.
Take my voodoo and sorcery word choices with that in mind.
We have all witnessed you get your ass handed to ya on many many occassions by the mods and other brilliant bullshit detectors.
It is really quite a beautiful thing.
Sometimes I think you work for PO.COM

Conversely......
I often ponder the sanity of someone who thoroughly disbelieves yet who continues to spend alot of time here.
You are trying to convince yourself by convincing others first.
Yes save us from our gardens, our composting toilets and our solar ovens!!!

Your presence here I no longer disagree with as you provide an easy to moderate kill and good practice for our resident ALT ENERGY "experts".
Your presence here 100% confirms the leniency of this boards moderators.

I am not an alt fuel BS expert so I will not debate this with you.
You win np debate over - G2L will save us - uhmmm why are we both still here?

I do like how you gave inflation 20% in 3 years though - nice touch

[cube]

Mm, the article is from the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, seen by most as an organisation that knows what it's talking about.

................................ A cult member calling rational people 'sorcerers' -- fairly standard psychopathology of sect members...

I know I can't be the only one here but I actually like being on the "fringe" of society.

anyways getting serious now:

In May, Qatar Petroleum said it is in talks with several oil companies to develop a GTL "megaproject" for production of up to 100,000 barrels per day.

sorry folks a 100,000 barrel per day "mega-project" is not going to change the fate of humanity. If this "megaproject" was multiplied by 10 fold then I can definitely see it influencing the price of crude....maybe (and I'm really shooting from the hip here) it might knock $10 off the price of crude so today's price would be $60 - $10 == $50. per barrel

However before you decide to celebrate what do you think would happen to the commodity price of natural gas if someone hypothetically built a 1 mbpd gas-to-liquid plant?

[lorenzo]

If they debate pros and cons for decades, this could mean only one thing! Nobody needs the plant:)

This comes closest to an "answer"...

Mmm, still waiting for that expert to pop in an clarify the issue a bit more, though.

If the American Association of Petroleum Geologists writes in 2003 that GTL is competitive with oil at US$20 per barrel, then why aren't there more GTL plants coming online?

[sch_peakoiler]

If they debate pros and cons for decades, this could mean only one thing! Nobody needs the plant:)

This comes closest to an "answer"...

Mmm, still waiting for that expert to pop in an clarify the issue a bit more, though.

If the American Association of Petroleum Geologists writes in 2003 that GTL is competitive with oil at US$20 per barrel, then why aren't there more GTL plants coming online?

I am not an expert but here is my opinion. You can dismiss it if you wish of course. I think this analysis included only the cost of the GTL process. But there is more to a GTL plant. One needs a solid supply of large quantities of natural gas. 100 000 tbd is already a whole lot of gas which will be consumed. I think they are not sure if they can secure such a supply over a relatively long time AND they are not sure if the impact of this supply coming out of does not make the gas prices explode, rendering the whole idea non competitive again. Given the high volatility of gas prices (gas is not as "liquid" as petroleum as oil) - this could easily be the case.

Af as I understand the tech - this whole GTL is no cake walk. So this means for it to pay out the investment + profit there should be:

1. Oil prices stays relatively high over a decade or 15 years (this personally I do not doubt)
2. Gas price stays relatively low for the same timeframe.
(this thing I doubt, as currently there is not much spare gas caps outthere)

It seems to me, that those investors have some data on 1. and 2. which lead them NOT to believe they hold true.

[vampyregirl]

since the 1970s the Royal Dutch Shell Group has been experimenting with GTL technology. GTL or gas to liquid, a synthetic fuel produced from natural gas only works in diesel engines, it produces good power and exhaust emissions are reduced. the GTL plant in Malaysia has been a success, Shell GTL is now powering China's civic transport industry. it is also being sold in europe.
Shell will soon be be producing far more GTL from the new plant in quatar. for now the biggest markets are in europe and asia. how soon will north america catch up? and while the quatar plant will produce 260k barrels a day of GTL and ethane thats really not that much in the grand scheme of things.
sorry if my writing skills are not the best

[billp]

sorry if my writing skills are not the best

Not to worry.

Your thinking skills appear to be working fine.

Your posts are informative.

best

[vfr]

since the 1970s the Royal Dutch Shell Group has been experimenting with GTL technology. GTL or gas to liquid, a synthetic fuel produced from natural gas only works in diesel engines, it produces good power and exhaust emissions are reduced. the GTL plant in Malaysia has been a success, Shell GTL is now powering China's civic transport industry. it is also being sold in europe.
Shell will soon be be producing far more GTL from the new plant in quatar. for now the biggest markets are in europe and asia. how soon will north america catch up? and while the quatar plant will produce 260k barrels a day of GTL and ethane thats really not that much in the grand scheme of things.
sorry if my writing skills are not the best

We got other problems right in line with peak oil. We got peak natural gas too!

We will run out of natural gas, just as we deplete our crude supplies in the near future.

http://www.amazon.com/High-Noon-Natural ... 1931498539

Have you ever thought about how much of our life is dependent on natural gas for cooking, heating and hot water?

How many of our homes are set up for efficient heating with natural methods such as wood, pellet, passive solar?

My house is not.

I never gave this subject any thought until I learned about peak natural gas. And by then it was too late.

My house is as far as it can be from the 'ideal house' that can be heated my natural methods. And to make maters worse, I live in the NE US, where it gets plenty cold.

Do you know that much of your life is dependent on natural gas outside its use as an energy source?

Natural gas is a raw material in many of our products we depend on.

Almost all the helium we produce comes from natural gas.

Propane, synthetic fertilizers, ammonia?

They are totally dependent on natural gas.

Our population boom was fueled by synthetic fertilizers made from natural; gas. Once the gas dries up so does the fertilizer and a shortage of fertilizer equals a shortage of food.

Natural; gas is also used as an energy source to produce steel, glass, paper, clothing, brick, electricity

http://www.enotes.com/how-products-ency ... atural-gas

http://www.ipm.iastate.edu/ipm/icm/2003 ... tgasn.html

http://www.eia.doe.gov/kids/energyfacts ... TISUSEDFOR




Take care,


V (Male)

Agnostic Freethinker
Practical Philosopher
Futurist
Urban Homesteader

[FreakOil]

A lot of countries are turning to natural gas to take up a greater share of electricity generation. A new LNG regasification plant was completed last year to provide power to the Pearl River Delta and Hong Kong, amid public outcries for cleaner air and global warming.

Now we have proposals for GTL to reduce reliance on oil for transport fuel. This does not look good for the natural gas supply situation. Fifteen countries control 72 percent of natural gas reserves. Some of these countries have peaked and the others will peak eventually.

I don't want to go into natural gas too deeply. There are other threads about it on this site. I'll just say that I wouldn't want to rely and natural gas too much for anything.

[vampyregirl]

for what its worth Shell has made recent gas field finds. one here in canada and at least two in the pacific. china has agreed to buy one trillion cubic feet of LNG per year from shell australia which recently developed an offshore field. shell china in partnership with state run chinese companies has developed another offshore field off the chinese coast. the demand for natural gas is increasing but while some fields are depleting others are being developed.

[vampyregirl]

According to the California Department of Energy there is growing interest in GTL in America but securing a large scale supply for the American market is just not there yet.
The GTL plant in Malaysia cannot produce enough to supply the growing global demand. It has a production capacity of 4k bpd much of which is sold in China.
The Pearl plant in Qatar, due to be completed in 2009 is much larger, capable of producing 260k bpd but that is geared for the European market where the majority of new vehicles sold are Diesel engined. (GTL also known as Syndiesel only works in Diesel engines)
There is a proposal to build a 75k bpd plant in Egypt but that is pending the completion of development of the deepwater Nemed field which will take another year at least. And will be spread out among international markets.

In 2006 a Audi Sport powered by Shell GTL won the famous 24 hour race at Le Mans sparking international demand for GTL.

[Gerben]

GTL or Gas to Liquid is the name for the process, not the product. GTL does not produce synthetic diesel only. It produces a variety of products ranging from metane to tar. Part of it is sold as synthetic gasoline and part as synthetic diesel.

[vampyregirl]

Yes it produces other products including clean burning aviation fuel. It is not sold as gasoline that i'm aware of. GTL prdoucts from the Malaysian operation and the new GTL plant in Qatar only work in Diesel engines.

[Gerben]

It is not sold as gasoline that i'm aware of.

We have V-power gasoline on a few stations in the Netherlands that contains some synthetic gasoline.

[vampyregirl]

BTW the prcoess is known as Topsch Fischer, named after its inventors. Shell GTL is a name for the product that only works in diesel engines. Syngasoline is different. It is derived from different sources. It has a higher energy content than ethanol and like ethanol is blended with regular gasoline.

[Outcast_Searcher]

Long term, no. Intermediate term, I have to respectfully disagree -- it can replace enough transpo fuel to make a major difference.


Just because NG isn't a liquid (at normal earth-range temperatures) doesn't make it unusable as a transportation fuel.

It DOES make it inconvenient, and thus it will have a significant cost to make it happen.

However, if the NG supplies are large (as they apparently are, given the recent various shale deposit news), and cheap -- at some point on the oil price curve, it WILL make a lot of economic sense to use NG in quantity to supplant the transportation fleet's gasoline supplies.

In the vast majority of energy articles just about everwhere including discussions on boards such as this, the vast majority of folks seem to lean to the extreme case on nearly every issue. Either it's cornucopian "everything is dandy - and fixing the problem will be CHEAP" or the more prevalent "we're all DOOMED, thus we'll ridicule and reject any idea to try and work our way out of the problem").


I guess that's why I'm a moderate. On almost every energy issue, I see the likely scenario far more likely to fall somewhere in the middle.

I see two major issues with NG, which would seem to coincide with various experts' general NG scenarios, such as Downey's "Oil 101":

1). It will take a HELL of a lot of NG to meaningfully impact the transportiation needs of the planet. Thus the cornucopian's assertion that NG will last for centuries will be in real danger of becoming more like 1 to 3 decades if NG is used this way to a large extent.

2). If NG is used this way, there will be a BIG premium on the cost at the wellhead, by the time it is collected, delivered, the transpo network is adapted to handle it, etc. Plus, since demand will be increased hugely, the price per BTU is likely to end up in the ballpark of that of oil - after all, at that point it is just a crude oil substitute for vehicles, in addition to its current uses.

So - there IS NO FREE LUNCH, but that is a far different thing than assuming there can be no NG (intermediate timeframe) transpo solution, because it will be inconvenient.


There has already been serious work afoot to allow safer storage of NG for cars (innovative tanks) - once the incentive is there this will greatly accelerate. For all driving but long trips, a shorter (say 150 - 200) mile range per tank will be no big deal (compared to not having fuel or horribly expensive fuel) - if that is even an issue long term.

If NG buys us, say 15 to 20 years of time to get true green solutions geared up once oil gets expensive (say averaging in the $150 to $300 area) - that puts us in a tremendously better spot to avoid the extreme doomer scenarios so often forseen on Peak Oil boards.

(Once oil averages say $200 a barrel, the roughly $6.00/gallon gasoline price should wake up enough folks to acutally allow us to make meaningful progress in renewables over a decade or two, not to mention real conservation efforts, etc).

[Maddog78]

I pretty much agree with you, Outcast Searcher.

I don't see any reason why N.G. can't get us through a transition stage for many decades.
With all the shale gas available, LNG plants being built and an Alaskan gas pipeline in the planning stages I don't even think the costs will get too far out of hand. There is a lot of supply out there.

pstarr loves his doom. He's not interested in seeing anything but doom.