London (Platts)–28Jun2013/902 am EDT/1302 GMT
Shell’s hopes for a new gas-to-liquids mega project on the US Gulf Coast would benefit from much-improved process efficiencies, but any resulting cost savings could be limited by the need to build most of the plant outside the US, Shell officials said this week.
Shell has improved its proprietary GTL technology to the point where it can achieve 50% gains in throughput volumes compared to its giant Pearl GTL plant in Qatar which came on stream in 2011, according to one of Shell’s top GTL scientists.