Gas To Liquid motor oils

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Is GTL technology proprietary? Have other manufacturers considered offering GTL motor oils or is this just a Pennzoil thing? All other additive considerations aside, how much benefit does GTL offer over other synthetics other than "purity"?
 
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There are tons of patents on it. But, patent pending or not, it's ungodly expensive to build such a facility capable of making the base oil. Costing billions of dollars in places you don't wanna live.
 
Gas to liquids technology has been around a long time (versions of it existed in World War II.) I believe the fiirst large development was in Qatar. The real goal was to make diesel fuel, but you can’t market diesel for a price higher than the competitive price of diesel, just two to three bucks a gallon. The Shell/ Penzoil chemists realized with a bit of molecular building they could make motor oil which they could sell for 20-30 dollars per gallon.

At one time the oil companies were seriously considering GTR technology as a way to sell natural gas currently land locked in Alaska.

SF
 
It has long been in the chain of petrochemical processes ending in numerous final/midstream products …
 
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Which XOM base oil is a GTL? I've never heard of this before.


Mobil 1, ever hear of it?
Some of the M1 offerings have or are GTL based.
They seems to be willing to switch back and forth
with it though. Perhaps the volume of sales may
exceed the supply of GTL produces.

My 2¢
 
Originally Posted By: 4WD
It has long been in the chain of petrochemical processes ending in numerous final/midstream products …


Yes, even though it hasn't "commonly" been used to make motor oil, it's been a standard in the petrochemical industry for decades.
 
Originally Posted By: ZraHamilton
Also, what is the difference in the chemical structure of GTLs and PAOs? They are both synthesized hydrocarbons.


I asked this question a few weeks ago, and no one (that frequents this forum) really truly knows.

Gotta find a petro-chem engineer to answer that one
 
Originally Posted By: Linctex
I asked this question a few weeks ago, and no one (that frequents this forum) really truly knows.

Aren't PAOs based upon chains of alkenes, whereas GTL produces primarily chains of alkanes?
 
Except PAO is hydrogenated to alkanes before use as a lube oil base stock. This is why you see (hydrogenated) even though olefin / alkene is a misnomer at this point.

If left in olefin form you couldn't add enough antioxidant to it to use for any sort of OCI.

Hydrogenation to alkanes gives PAO the stability we see in use.
 
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Okay, no I don't know the difference, either, then.
wink.gif
 
No according to SOPUS.

Simplest distinction I can think of is GTL process uses methane as the initial feedstock, so synthesized GTL process molecules can have any number of carbon atoms, and a wide variety of shapes especially with regard to degree of branching for a given carbon number. However, with respect to lube base oils, additional processing via hydroisomerization aka catalytic dewaxing increases the degree of branching significantly.

PAO is manufactured uding ethylene as the basic bulding blocks so hydrocarbon molecules of PAO only consist of even numbers of carbon atoms (multiples of two). Molecular dtructure is more specific yo degree of branching. Begore being used as lube syock PAO is saturated with hydrogen to paraffins / alkanes for stability as olefins are fairly reactive species.

In the end both are highly branched hydroprocessed hydrocarbon mixtures when used as lube oil base stocks.

The question as posed regarding differences is really broad based and needs more narrowing down to be much more specific in providing an answer.
 
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