Natural gas is rapidly becoming a strategic fuel of geopolitical importance. Gas has
grown from a marginal fuel consumed in regionally disconnected markets to a fuel that is now
being transported from remote sites across great distances. Increasingly, natural gas is the
fuel of choice for consumers seeking its relatively low environmental impact.
The growing importance of natural gas imports from remote regions to the world’s modern
economies will force new thinking about alternative energy supply and energy security. This
thinking will need to be backed with technology improvements, reduced logistics costs, and
international co-operation to meet global long-term demand for natural gas.
With rising global petroleum product demand, increasing environmental concerns, and
aggressive movement towards more stringent transportation fuel quality standards, nonpetroleum
sources for fuel are offering an increasingly attractive supply option. There is
renewed interest in development and deployment of new Fischer-Tropsch based gas-to-liquids
(F-T GTL) technologies for conversion of remote and stranded gas because of high oil prices,
technology advances, lower costs, and economies of scale.
In this review, we first look at challenges to commercialization of F-T GTL beyond
technology, including competing market opportunities, economics of LNG vs. GTL, and capital
availability. Next we report on the status of known GTL projects, and finally we discuss the
impact of oil price on market acceptance, including California’s plan to reduce dependence on
petroleum.
By Ron Smith
