Shell See Pearl Peaking Mid 2012

Royal Dutch Shell Plc says that its Pearl natural gas-to-liquids plant in Qatar will reach full production capacity by the middle of 2012.

Shell executive vice president Andy Brown said the second phase of the plant is “getting close to starting, " and will be running at full capacity by the middle of next year.

Once fully operational,the $18.5 billion facility  it will be able to convert 1.6 billion cubic feet a day of gas into 140,000 barrels a day of liquid fuels such as kerosene and base oil that are normally produced in a refinery. The facility will also produce 120,000 barrels a day of condensate and liquid petroleum gas.

Qatar Petroleum and Shell said last month Pearl had sold its first commercial shipment of base oil. The first cargoes of naphtha, gasoil and condensate from the plant were sold earlier in the year.