Ever-tightening global clean fuel specifications will help GTL products find markets, and may allow them to fetch a premium over oil-based products. GTL products are free of sulfur and aromatics, are biodegradable, and burn with significantly lower smoking and lower emissions of pollutants including particulates, hydrocarbons, and carbon monoxide. Blending GTL products could save refiners having to upgrade plants.
Furthermore, GTL plants can produce a huge amount of base oil, used to make automotive lubricants. Lubes are a growing market and are always very high value per volume unit – often a company will make more selling lubes than anything else. As Asia-Pacific motorizes and as industry needs ever more specialized lubricant, the sales volume of lubes will grow. (CONTINUED - 267 WORDS)
