SAAFA: QATAR

A Qatar Airways Airbus A340-600 flight from Doha to London on Wednesday 9 February marked the introduction of commercial-scale synthetic jet fuel produced in Qatar. The natural gas-to-liquid (GTL) jet fuel, which is blended 50/50 with conventional Jet-A1, is being produced by the Pearl GTL plant, a venture involving Qatar Petroleum and Shell.

 

GTL blend was approved for commercial use in 2009 as part of the Fischer-Tropsch Synthetic Paraffinic Kerosene (FT-SPK). GTL fuel does not provide reductions in lifecycle CO2 emissions but is cleaner burning with almost zero sulphur and lower particulate emissions compared with its petroleum-based equivalent.

 

With its huge reserves of natural gas, Qatar is looking to exploit its position as the GTL capital of the world and Shell has sunk nearly $19 billion into the Pearl GTL project, its largest single global investment. There are expectations that up to one million tonnes of the fuel can be produced annually by Pearl GTL. Shell built the world’s first commercial-scale GTL plant in Bintulu, Malaysia, in 1993 but output of Pearl GTL products is expected to be 10 times greater.