The first shipment of gas-to-liquid (GTL) base oil from the massive Pearl GTL plant in Qatar arrived at the Port of Houston last Wednesday, Shell Lubricants said.

The plant in Ras Laffan Industrial City uses natural gas from the country’s North Field to manufacture high-quality base oils and other GTL products; gas began flowing through a subsea pipeline offshore Qatar earlier this year (see Daily GPI, March 25). Pearl comprises two offshore platforms that are 60 kilometers off the Qatar coast that are connected by pipeline to the GTL plant.

The Group III base oil transported to the United States is to be used to manufacture motor oil. The new product is to be the foundation for formulating next-generation products to improve energy efficiency, longer equipment life and reduced maintenance costs, according to the Royal Dutch Shell plc subsidiary.

Pearl GTL, the largest GTL plant ever built, is a partnership between Shell and Qatar Petroleum that was launched in 2006. The plant was brought into production in May and converts natural gas and oxygen to GTL wax. In the last step of the process, the waxes are cracked and distilled into finished GTL products.The plant sold its first commercial shipment of GTL gasoil in June and was scheduled to begin operations by the end of this year, CEO Peter Voser said in October (see Daily GPI, Oct. 28; June 14).

Once the Pearl GTL plant is operating at full capacity, it will be one of the world’s largest sources of lubricant base oils with the capacity to produce about 30,000 b/d, which is enough to fill 225 million cars per year, according to Shell. The oil major, which operates the GTL facility, said it would be the only producer capable of meeting all of its Group III base oil needs from internal sources.

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