Natural Gas Utilization: A Case Study of GTW AND GTL Technologies

Abstract

This paper itemizes different utilization technology that could be used to monetize natural gas asset and a comparative techno-economic study of the use of Gas-to-Wire (GTW) technology and Gas-to-Liquid (GTL) to monetize a gas asset was also carried out. A study of this nature is necessary given the increase in the fraction of natural gas in the global energy mix, lower cost of exploration and production of gas reserve and the dip in natural gas price experienced in recent years.

The comparative study includes two scenarios describing the different production condition of the gas asset. Economic metrics such as Net Present Value (NPV), Internal Rate of Return (IRR) and, Payback Period were used to assess the project yield for the two utilization projects.

Sensitivity analysis was carried out on certain market drivers used in the analysis to ascertain the level of influence of each driver on the project yield and to compare how do their level of influence differ with each project. Monte-Carlo simulation was also used to analyze the level of risk involved in the two utilization.

A research of this nature is expected to serve as a guide to a natural gas producer in this era of abundance, but a low price when considering various options on how to monetize their natural gas assets.