Shell's Pearl GTL plant in Qatar visited

Shell’s new engine oils are made from a new process for producing oil from natural gas. They are calling it PurePlus and they are really excited about it. After a trip to their research and development centre in Qatar, where we were exposed to this technology first hand, we can understand where that enthusiasm stems from. The revolutionary Pearl GTL plant in Qatar is where the magic happens, turning natural gas into the liquid base oil that makes up 90 per cent of the oil that’s in the new Shell Advance Ultra.

While the basic gas-to-liquids (GTL) or Fischer-Tropsch technology dates back to the 1920s, Shell has managed to refine this process to produce a 99.5 per cent pure base oil. In fact it’s so clear it looks just like a bottle of water till you shake it and see that its viscosity is higher than water. This same …