First natural gas from offshore fields flows into Pearl GTL plant

The first natural gas from offshore fields flowed into Royal Dutch Shell PLC’s flagship Pearl gas-to-liquids plant in Qatar on March 23. Sections of the Pearl plant, which Shell developed in partnership with state-owned Qatar Petroleum, will be started up progressively over the coming months, Shell said. Full production is expected by 2012. Pearl is Shell’s largest single project, costing between US$18 billion and US$19 billion. “Today is an important milestone in the Pearl GTL project, and we are on a clear pathway towards the start-up of gas-to-liquids production,” said Shell Chief Executive Peter Voser in a statement. Qatar International Petroleum Marketing Co., or Tasweeq, will be the marketer for petroleum products and condensate produced from Pearl, except for base oil and natural gas liquids. (March 23,2011)