MyWestTexas.com - Oil & Gas - 01/22/2006 - Major oil companies bet billions on obscure way to produce diesel: "RAS LAFFAN INDUSTRIAL CITY, Qatar -- In this tiny emirate, the world's largest oil companies are betting billions of dollars on an obscure method for making diesel fuel that stems from apartheid South Africa's aggressive efforts to wean its economy off imported oil.
Yellow school buses shuttle thousands of Indian and Pakistani workers from nearby camps each day to work in a giant meandering knot of pipes and turbines, showcased with a logo of an oryx, Qatar's antelope mascot.
No one is angling for oil here. In fact, rising oil prices have lifted the fortunes of a once-shunned technology that converts another fossil fuel, natural gas, into clean-burning diesel.
Even as geologists fiercely debate whether depleting oilfields can satiate intense demand for oil in the rising economies of Asia, the actions of the international energy industry may speak louder than words. Big oil is betting on once-derided unconventional energy sources, like this stranded natural gas in the Persian Gulf and remote tar deposits in Canada and Venezuela, to help meet surging demand for transportation fuel.
'It's time to take the genie out of the bottle,' Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiyah, Qatar's energy minister, said in an interview. 'We want to be the capital of the world for this new age of fuels,' he said.
These different types of fuels may have clunky monikers, like GTL and LNG. But they also draw big money. Al-Attiyah rattled off a roster of ventures with Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch/Shell, Chevron and Sasol of South Africa to produce a new form of diesel from natural gas and said they were expected to invest more than $14 billion in capital over the next five to seven years. "