On October 12, the first commercial flight powered by fuel from natural gas took place. From London’s Gatwick airport, it took the Qatar Airways Airbus A340-600 some six hours flying time before landing at Doha International Airport.
Developed by Shell, the company building the world’s largest gas-to-liquids (GTL) plant in Qatar in conjunction with Qatar Petroleum, the fuel used to power the jet engines was a mix blend of GTL kerosene and conventional oil-based kerosene fuel, known as GTL Jet Fuel. The flight is a promising sign for the airline given that Qatar, which holds the third largest reserves of gas in the world, is set to become the world leader in GTL kerosene if production begins on schedule in 2012. Besides the commercial advantages of using the GTL blend, the fuel also emits less sulfur dioxide than its conventional cousin making it more eco-friendly.
Many analysts however doubt that the fuel will become an effective alternative to conventional jet fuel due to the high costs involved in its production process. According to JBC Energy, a Vienna-based energy consulting firm, GTL kerosene’s potential by 2015 is some 40,000 barrels per day, equal to approximately 0.8 percent of global demand for jet fuel. Speaking to The Wall Street Journal, David Wech, head of research at JBC Energy, said that when the full life cycle emissions are taken into account, more CO2 is emitted than when conventional jet fuel is used. “GTL economics do simply not work out,” he noted.
Publicity stunt or not, with around 1 million tons of GTL kerosene planned to be pumped out of Qatari territory — enough to fly a commercial aircraft 500 million kilometers, according to Qatar Airways — the carrier looks like it still has a long way to go and more than enough fuel to get it there.
