[DakotaGator]

...the decision that GTL is not a viable option for Shell in North America, at this time, due to the likely development cost of such a project...

Wonder if those costs included overcoming federal government hostility to any hydrocarbon fuel development?

[thackney]

Cost of US regulation is certainly a factor.

But what I had read in previous discussion, before Shell even proposed this plant (they have two others in Qatar and Indonesia) was the strong Natural Gas Demand in the US compared to the production rate.