Economics of Gas-to-Liquids (GTL) Plants

Abstract

This work evaluates the economics of GTL plant using two synthesis gas methods. The first method called the base case utilizes oxygen as fuel for combustion of natural gas, while the proposed case uses steam/CO 2 instead of Oxygen. The aim is to ascertain a more economically viable GTL configuration for an optimal GTL process. The associated flare gas at Egbema production sites in the Niger Delta has been chosen as case study. The gas flowrate is 50MMscfd of raw natural gas which was pre-treated before being fed into the main GTL plant. The liquid yield result shows that the proposed method has a liquid yield of 5730b/d over the 5430b/d gotten from the base case representing an increase in product yield of 5.5%. The economic analyses show a quicker pay-out time of 4.9 years from the proposed model compared to 5.9 years from the base case. Using the proposed method gave an annual cashflow increase of 20.9% and NPV increase of 59.7% at 10% discount rates. Also the DCF-ROR from the proposed method was 20.3% compared to 16.6% gotten from the base method. Thus the proposed method is more profitable in terms of NPV. The project is recommended for application in the Niger Delta stranded and remote gas locations that have before now been subjected to flaring.

Decarbonizing the Gas-to-Liquid (GTL) Process Using an Advanced Reforming of Methane Process

“…For the CAPEX calculations, the literature information available on the Shell Pearl GTL plant (140,000 bbl./day of GTL products and a cost of 19 billion USD) has been used as the base case. A 0.66 scalability factor is employed, which is highly relevant for GTL plants, as documented in the literature . Since the advanced reformer-based GTL process comprises a two-reactor system where the first reactor is an addition to the existing reformer in the GTL plant, the CAPEX of the reforming section will be approximately twice that of the conventional reforming plant.…”

“…A 0.66 scalability factor is employed, which is highly relevant for GTL plants, as documented in the literature. 42 Since the advanced reformer-based GTL process comprises a two-reactor system where the first reactor is an addition to the existing reformer in the GTL plant, the CAPEX of the reforming section will be approximately twice that of the conventional reforming plant. Since the reforming process constitutes approximately 50% of the GTL plant cost, the additional CAPEX burden due to the two-reactor advanced reformer process integration will be approximately 1.5 times the GTL plant CAPEX.…”

Decarbonisation of Urban Freight Transport Systems through Alternative Fuels

“…However, more infrastructure would be needed to have a reliable enough network of filling stations. Natural gas takes the shape of whatever container it is inside of, so special containers may need to be built to transport them if gas pipelines cannot be used, and these are more expensive than the containers used for conventional liquids such as crude oil [12]. What makes this more difficult is that compressed natural gas (CNG) and LNG fuels have different infrastructure requirements.…”