At a cost of $US5 billion the huge gas-to-liquids (GTL) plant will be developed to produce a cleaner energy for cars and buses and will be fed from the country's massive North Field, which holds 900 trillion cubic feet of gas, making it the largest single source of gas in the world.
A number of international majors such as Shell, Exxon and BP have been trialling GTL for over a decade but had written it off as too expensive. Nicknamed 'white crude' GTL is claimed to be significantly cleaner than traditional petrol or diesel although paradoxically the refining process produces considerable carbon dioxide emissions.
The size of the development makes it the second largest project investment for Shell after the $10 billion allocated for Russia's Sakhalin gas scheme.
