How Much Natural Gas To Make A 5 Qt. Jug Of Pennzoil ?

[billt460]

I have no idea how they make motor oil from natural gas. Can anyone explain the process? And about how many cubic ft. of natural gas does it take to make a jug? Are there any by products left over, and if so are they usable, or burned off? Thanks in advance.

 

[OVERKILL]

I have no idea how they make motor oil from natural gas. Can anyone explain the process? And about how many cubic ft. of natural gas does it take to make a jug? Are there any by products left over, and if so are they usable, or burned off? Thanks in advance.

The Fischer-Tropsch process takes a gaseous feed stock (in this case methane, but you can use coal gassification to produce the feed stock as well) and converts it into useful hydrocarbons via a reaction with a catalyst. That's the general gist of it.

No idea on the conversion efficiency.

Here's a more complex explanation:

10.2. Fischer-Tropsch Synthesis

Liquid transportation hydrocarbon fuels and various other chemical products can be produced from syngas via the well-known and established catalytic chemical process called Fischer-Tropsch (FT) synthesis, named after the original German inventors, Franz Fischer and Hans Tropsch in the 1920s...

www.netl.doe.gov

 

[billt460]

Man it gets complicated fast!

 

[Bryanccfshr]

Volume to Weight conversions for common substances and materials

Convert volume to weight for different substances and materials based on their density. Volume and calculated weight are in different units of measurement

www.aqua-calc.com

you can use moles law but using the above calculator wemcan use some swag and understand to make an ounce of liquid it takes at least 2cubic feet of pure methane gas.a volume equal to about 15 gallons. Now since the conversion is not 100%efficient and natural gas streams are not pure methane (water and co2 take up some volume) and btu values differ by region of production). So it can be assumed it takes a margin more due to those items

32oz qt, 2cu feetx32 =64 cubic foot or 480 gallons of volume,or 1920 qts. So the volume conversion is approximately 2000 to 1. certainly Catalyst condition and feedstock quality would affect this. And we don’t know the fraction of the liquid converted thay will become base oil.

 

[CR94]

I haven't taken time to try to calculate in more detail, but I'd bet that more than one pound of methane will be required to make a pound of GTL base oil.

 

[billt460]

I have no idea how much natural gas you can buy for $23.00. (The price of a jug of Pennzoil Platinum at Wal-Mart). But it has to be a lot more gas than what it takes to manufacture a single jug.

 

[Bryanccfshr]

Gas is sold by MCF =1000cubic feet. The price is currently 5.26 per MCF bit as a producer of the natural has that Market price is simply a metric to determine if the feedstock is used or sold. The feedstock cost is probably abput 2-2.50 for 5 qts but there is catalyst cost, hardware and energy and labor cost to production as well

 

[Hermann]

Man it gets complicated fast!

Nothing stays simple for very long on BITOG.

 

[kschachn]

Gas is sold by MCF =1000cubic feet. The price is currently 5.26 per MCF bit as a producer of the natural has that Market price is simply a metric to determine if the feedstock is used or sold. The feedstock cost is probably abput 2-2.50 for 5 qts but there is catalyst cost, hardware and energy and labor cost to production as well

I wonder how many GTL plants actually "pay" for their gas? The Pearl plant uses stranded gas that would otherwise be torched, do some GTL plants buy gas for production?

As an aside the cost of the gas (whatever that may be) is the least of Shell's expense in Qatar.

 

[billt460]

I'm not a scientist / chemist. But it would seem, (at least according to the more common laws of physics), that in order to change a gas into a liquid, it involves a major change in temperature / pressure. Water into steam. Liquid oxygen, hydrogen, helium, propane, etc. So how can they change natural gas into a jug of oily liquid, all at room temperature, and normal atmospheric pressure?

 

[weasley]

I'm not a scientist / chemist. But it would seem, (at least according to the more common laws of physics), that in order to change a gas into a liquid, it involves a major change in temperature / pressure. Water into steam. Liquid oxygen, hydrogen, helium, propane, etc. So how can they change natural gas into a jug of oily liquid, all at room temperature, and normal atmospheric pressure?

They're not just liquifying a gas (phase change), they are taking the small gas molecules and stitching them together chemically to make longer molecules. Longer molecules have a higher boiling point so are liquid at ambient and in-use temperatures. Imagine each gas molecule is like the link of a chain - the chemical process adds links together to create a longer chain of a certain length (or a range of lengths). You're right though that this process also takes heat, pressure and catalysts.

And it isn't even that 'simple' - the Fischer-Tropsch process creates a waxy output - this output is then fed into a hydrocracker to generate the final base oil. That second part of the process is the same as for a 'regular' group III base oil, where refinery output is fed into the same cracker to get the base oil. The main difference between GTL and crude-sourced group IIIs is the source of the feedstock into the cracker. One comes from a refinery, the other from a FT reactor.

 

[kschachn]

Nice explanation weasley.

 

[OVERKILL]

They're not just liquifying a gas (phase change), they are taking the small gas molecules and stitching them together chemically to make longer molecules. Longer molecules have a higher boiling point so are liquid at ambient and in-use temperatures. Imagine each gas molecule is like the link of a chain - the chemical process adds links together to create a longer chain of a certain length (or a range of lengths). You're right though that this process also takes heat, pressure and catalysts.

And it isn't even that 'simple' - the Fischer-Tropsch process creates a waxy output - this output is then fed into a hydrocracker to generate the final base oil. That second part of the process is the same as for a 'regular' group III base oil, where refinery output is fed into the same cracker to get the base oil. The main difference between GTL and crude-sourced group IIIs is the source of the feedstock into the cracker. One comes from a refinery, the other from a FT reactor.

Excellent explanation as @kschachn noted. I would add that the waxy feed stock produced via F-T is purer (and slightly different) than the slack wax that comes out of the conventional distillation tree, which is the reason GTL bases behave a bit differently than their crude counterparts (lower wax in the end product, better pour points, higher VI, lower volatility) despite being put through the same hydrocracking process.

 

[GenaFishbeck]

I have no idea how they make motor oil from natural gas. Can anyone explain the process? And about how many cubic ft. of natural gas does it take to make a jug? Are there any by products left over, and if so are they usable, or burned off? Thanks in advance.

Great question! Here is an article that can explain how our motor oils are made from natural gas: https://www.pennzoil.com/en_us/education/natural-gas-to-motor-oil.html

Additionally, here is a helpful video that breaks down the science behind Pennzoil motor oils being made from natural gas; a process 40 years in the making!

Feel free to send us a DM if you're interested in learning more. - The Pennzoil Team