Gas to liquids
conversion of natural gas to liquid petroleum products
Gas to liquids (GTL) is a refinery process to convert natural gas or other gaseous hydrocarbons into longer-chain hydrocarbons, such as gasoline or diesel fuel. Methane-rich gases are converted into liquid synthetic fuels. Two general strategies exist: (i) direct partial combustion of methane to methanol and (ii) Fischer–Tropsch-like processes that convert carbon monoxide and hydrogen into hydrocarbons. Strategy ii is followed by diverse methods to convert the hydrogen-carbon monoxide mixtures to liquids. Direct partial combustion has been demonstrated in nature but not replicated commercially. Technologies reliant on partial combustion have been commercialized mainly in regions where natural gas is inexpensive.
The motivation for GTL is to produce liquid fuels, which are more readily transported than methane. Methane must be cooled below its critical temperature of −82.3 °C in order to be liquified under pressure. Because of the associated cryogenic apparatus, LNG tankers are used for transport. Methanol is a conveniently handled combustible liquid, but its energy density is half of that of gasoline.
“Gas to liquids” enters the record as conversion of natural gas to liquid petroleum products. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what liquids, conversion and natural can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q902539. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Gas to liquids” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.