There are several ways in order to transport natural gas. The most common way, transmission by pipeline, is economical when gas resources and markets be close to each other. Considering to, Iran gas resources are located far from foreign consumption markets, other alternatives such as LNG or GTL can be used. Liquefied Natural Gas, LNG, which is a fuel that is used as utility in industries, has a slow growth because of its saturated markets so there is a hard competition between LNG producers. The other alternative, GTL, is a clean fuel with high environmental standards which is interested by investigators in last years. Now a days, Processes such as SSPD, SMDS, AGC-21, and etc. are used to convert natural gas into products with higher value added all around the world. Iran, as a second possessor of gas resources, without facing political stresses and challenges for gas pipelines or limited LNG markets, can make much more profit from its huge gas resources by GTL technology. It is clear that GTL technology has a perfect role in economical future of Iran and other countries with gas resources. In this research, different GTL processes are studied in technical, economical and products quality aspects. Finally the best process specially for Iran is proposed.
Investigators have become interested in natural gas in recent years because of its effects in petrochemical industries, the huge gas, and limited oil reservoirs. Also, natural gas is an environmental friendly fuel. Although oil is the first resource of energy, in the past decade, the increase in gas consumption was greater than oil.
The use of fossil fuels has lead to the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere and consequently increasing the Earth's temperature due to the greenhouse effect. So it seems necessary to replace natural gas as the main resource of energy all over the world. Nuclear energy could provide an alternative resource, but the damages it causes and the world resistance to use this.
Source of energy makes natural gas the first choice of energy resource.
Unlike crude oil, transportation of natural gas is so expensive, that most of it is consumed in the production areas and the residual amount wastes cause environmental pollution.
Transportation by pipeline or in the form of LNG are two common ways for transporting natural gas. Both these ways are too expensive due to the considerably high production costs. Transportation by LNG is only suitable for distances about 1500 km offshore or 3500km onshore.
Indeed, natural gas is the most important resource of energy in this century. In order to increase natural gas consumption, it is necessary to decrease the costs of transportation by pipeline or as LNG. Other approaches such as CNG and transportation by hydrate have been developed as new solutions for transportation over long distances. Another technique which economizes the transportation of gas over far distances, is converting it into middle distillate products.
