Converting Prudhoe Bay gas to methanol cheaper than building a pipeline

According to S. S. Marsden (Stanford Univ.) at the Society of Petroleum Engineers Meeting (Las Vegas Sept. 1979), because of the difficulties of financing a $12 billion gas pipeline from Prudhoe Bay, it would be more feasible to convert Prudhoe Bay gas to methanol in Alaska, pump it through the surplus capacity in the Alyeska Pipeline to Valdez, ship it by tanker to west coast and gulf coast terminals, and use it to make gasohol or the additive methyl tert.-butyl ether; gas-to-methanol plants could be built at industrial centers, mounted on barges, and towed to Prudhoe Bay; a 3000 metric ton/yr plant could be delivered at a cost of about $250 million. According to M. R. Tek, natural gas that is now being flared in the Mideast could be converted to methanol at the site and could be transported in currently mothballed crude-oil tankers to the U.S., where it could be reconverted to methane and stored in underground reservoirs, such as depleted natural gasfields. Gas obtained from Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, and Iran for about $0.55/thousand cu ft could be converted to methane and shipped to the U.S. for about $3.85/thousand cu ft. U.S. natural gas consumption, which is now approx.more » 20 trillion cu ft/yr, will about exhaust the reserves of the lower 48 states in the 1980's.« less