Royal Dutch Shell has started maintenance work on its Pearl gas-to-liquids (GTL) plant in Qatar halting production for up to two months.
One of the two trains at the facility recently entered a planned ‘turnaround’ maintenance programme that could carry on until April, the company said.
The plant, which is located in Ras Laffan industrial zone, north of the capital Doha, is a joint venture between Shell and Qatar Petroleum.
It boasts two ‘trains’, each with a total capacity of 140,000 barrels per day (bpd) of gas-to-liquid products and 120,000 bpd of natural gas liquids and ethane.
The first phase of the Pearl GTL project started in early 2011 and exported its first commercial shipment of gasoil in June 2011.
The whole plant ramped up to full production at the end of 2012 producing cleaner-burning diesel and aviation fuel and oils for advanced lubricants as well as naphtha used to make plastics and paraffin for detergents.
