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MANUFACTURING-GAS-TO-LIQUIDS
(GTL) PetroSA is a pioneer in the field of GTL production and through its Manufacturing Division operates the world's largest natural gas-to-liquids plant on a 770 ha site at Mossel Bay. The project to produce synthetic motor fuels from natural gas from the FA and EM fields was announced in February 1987 to reduce South Africa's dependence on imported crude oil. This required the building of the conversion plant at Mossel Bay, a coastal town 400 km west of Cape Town, the erection of the production platform on the FA field, B5 km offshore, as well as two 91-km Jong dedicated pipelines to carry the gas and associated condensate to the onshore conversion plant. One of only three plants worldwide operating GTL technology commercially to produce transformation fuels, the Mossel Bay plant produces 36 000 barrels of finished product daily. This is the equivalent of 50 000 barrels of crude oil and amounts to about 7% of South Africa's liquid fuel needs. The offshore platform supplied the first gas from the FA field to the onshore plant on 31 March 1992. The onshore plant achieved full production in January 1993. The Manufacturing Division operates the Voorbaai tank farm as well as a single point mooring (SPM) and a conventional buoy mooring (CBM). The Voorbaai tank farm is used to store finished products from the Mossel Bay plant prior to their shipment by coastal tankers to local and international markets, as well as the storage of condensate that theicompany imports to supplement condensate produced from the FA and EM fields. The SPM is used for the
loading of fini$hed petroleum products into tankers and the receipt
of the imported condensate. THe CBM is used for the loading of alcohol
into chemical tankers. The GTL plant's total production in 2001 was 1 92 billion cubic metres or 12 million barrels (1 barrel = 159 litres). |
