Shell marks milestone for natural gas

DOHA, Qatar, March 23 (UPI) -- With Shell declaring a new dawn for natural gas, the company announced Wednesday its first dedicated flow of offshore gas for its plant in Qatar.

Shell announced that it opened its natural gas wells offshore Qatar for processing at the Pearl GTL project.

Pearl can produce 1.6 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day from the North Field complex in the Persian Gulf. The project was launched in 2006 and the cornerstone was laid by Qatari officials in 2007.

The project, in terms of investments, is the largest energy project launched by Qatar, Shell said.

"Today is an important milestone in the Pearl GTL project and we are on a clear pathway toward the start up of gas to liquids production," said Peter Voser, chief executive officer of Royal Dutch Shell, in a statement.

The announcement follows comments from Malcolm Brinded, Shell's upstream director, who spoke at an energy conference in Amsterdam on the future of natural gas.

"I believe that as an industry we can do a much better job in helping to persuade governments and regulators to rethink gas -- and to set clear expectations and policies that enable gas to play its full and deserved part as a secure, reliable and highly competitive long term supply source in the energy mix," he said in a statement.