QATAR - ExxonMobil GTL.ExxonMobil and QP on July 14, 2004 signed an initial agreement to develop a GTL GTL - Gunning Transceiver Logic project at Ras Laffan industrial city, with an investment of $7 bn. This will process about 1,800 MCF/day of natural gas from Qatar's North field, converting it into 154,000 b/d of ultra-clean diesel, lubricants and small quantities of naphtha naphtha (năp`thə, năf`–), term usually restricted to a class of colorless, volatile, flammable liquid hydrocarbon mixtures. . It was agreed that the principal terms of this integrated project will be defined at a later stage in a 25-year DPSA DPSA Department of Public Service and Administration (Republic of South Africa) DPSA Development and Production Sharing Agreement DPSA Defense Production Sharing Agreement DPSA Dartmoor Pony Society of America DPSA Deck Power Supply Assembly . This will come into effect from the start of production in 2011. "ExxonMobil's investment contribution will be 100% of the forecast capital cost", a statement by the two parties then said. ExxonMobil will design, construct and operate the project. It will have the right to develop and produce gas, associated liquids and other hydrocarbons in sufficient quantities to exploit the 154,000 b/d capacity of the GTL plant, the statement said. Around half of the plant's production will be for sulphur-free diesel, about 20% will be in high-quality lubricant base stocks and the remainder in naphtha and other associated products. ExxonMobil drilled an appraisal well for the GTL project in 2004 and was to supplement the pre-FEED phase undertaken earlier. The FEED phase will be carried out after the conclusion of a final agreement and Fluor Daniel of the US has been selected for this. Fluor Daniel did the pre-FEED work in 2003-04. It had done a preliminary study on the project already. The FEED contract is likely to contains an option for Fluor to provide the PMC (1) See Portable Media Center. (2) (PCI Mezzanine Card) A PCI-based mezzanine card that is widely adapted to VMEbus, CompactPCI and PCI cards. services as well. In June 2001, QP and ExxonMobil had signed a letter of intent to do a technical feasibility study The analysis of a problem to determine if it can be solved effectively. The operational (will it work?), economical (costs and benefits) and technical (can it be built?) aspects are part of the study. Results of the study determine whether the solution should be implemented. for the GTL plant, to be built at Ras Laffan. ExxonMobil then said the study will "indentify and determine potential synergy opportunities" with other projects and infrastructure in Qatar. In 1997 QGPC QGPC Qatar General Petroleum Corporation QGPC Qatar General Petroleum Company and Exxon had signed an MoU to establish the GTL venture based on Exxon's "revolutionary" Advanced Gas Conversion (AGC-21) process. Exxon Al Khalij, Exxon's Middle East unit based in Abu Dhabi, had been working on the project since 1994 (see background in Vol. 61, DT No. 10). Qatar is having the Gulf region's first helium plant at Ras Laffan to be owned by Qatargas and RasGas and to produce 660 MCF/y. Air Liquide of France got the $115m EPC (1) (Entertainment PC) See HTPC. (2) (Electronic Product Code) A standard code for RFID tags administered by EPCglobal Inc. (www.epcglobalinc.org). contract for this on May 21, 2003. Total and Japanese firms are studying a 2,500 t/d di-methyl ether (DME (Distributed Management Environment) A network monitoring and control protocol defined by the Open Software Foundation (now The Open Group). DME was not widely used. DME - Distributed Management Environment ) plant in Qatar to be on stream by 2007 |
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