The history of eni is distinguished by its strong commitment to the development of natural gas. Natural gas is at present about 50' of our hydrocarbons production and is also of great importance in the future of our company. As a matter of fact, eni's continued success in upstream exploration, especially in Africa, is generally recognized in the industry, and eni has a diverse and attractive global portfolio of upstream gas resources including a major discovery in Mozambique.
The most popular way to move gas over long distances from the source to the consumer is LNG but many other technology options for gas monetization are available and can be considered case by case. These alternatives include for example, high pressure/capacity pipelines, electric power generation (Gas-to-Wire), and finally natural gas conversion into liquid hydrocarbons, the so called Gas to Liquids (GTL) processes.
In recent years, most of the major oil companies have shown a renewed interest in Gas to Liquids technology, encouraged by the current carbon scenario and increasingly stringent regulations on emission level in fuels.
This paper considers the technical performance, the capital costs, as well as the market potential for LNG and GTL products to highlight that, although we often discuss GTL and LNG as competitors, this need not always be the case. Both are viable processes to monetize stranded gas but serve different markets, and they should be considered to capture different business opportunities, and also to provide gas monetization alternatives to nations with large gas reserves.
