GTL plant moves closer to start-up

Petroleum News Alaska Staff

BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc. says it is “continuing to make progress” toward the start up of its gas-to-liquids demonstration plant in Nikiski, which was initially scheduled to open this past spring.

“We have not set a specific date for this, but are interested in commencing production of syncrude using our new GTL technology as soon as possible,” company spokesman Dave MacDowell told PNA Oct. 16. “We remain focused on testing the performance of our proprietary compact reformer technology and proprietary converter catalyst.

“Successful performance” of the plant, he pointed out, “will mean that this technology could be of value for stranded gas commercialization anywhere around the world.”

Once operating, the $86 million GTL plant is expected to convert 3 million cubic feet of natural gas to 300 barrels of liquid products per day. Plans are to test its performance for five years with the possibility of modeling a North Slope plant after it which would process the slope’s stranded natural gas. GTL could then be mixed with crude and shipped down the trans-Alaska oil pipeline.

During his presentation at an energy workshop at the University of Alaska Fairbanks in April, Mike Malvick, a system engineering head at Alyeska Pipeline Service Co., said that mixing GTL products with the existing crude flowing through 800-mile pipeline his company operates could be particularly beneficial if more viscous oil is pushed through the pipeline in the future. The lighter GTL, he said, could make the heavy crude easier and less expensive to transport. (See May 19 article in PNA archives.)

The main drawback for mixing GTL with crude oil, Malvick said, is that the gas-based products would lose their environmental value as low sulfur fuels.