GTL doesn’t need to be everywhere to get started. We have plenty of places, like around Houston Texas, where it could get started if it was economic without subsidy.
It is done by Shell and Sasol for example, but only in places where the natural gas supply is so much greater than the demand, that it drives the local gas price very low.
For example, Shell has a huge GTL facility in Qatar. From Qatar, it competes with exported LNG, where it can be cost effective. Shell looked at bring a plant to the US recently, but the economics are not there, at least not for us.
I see the Shell motor oils (Pennzoil Platinum) have big labels on the bottle “made from natural gas”
They’ve also been running some screaming deals via their fuel rewards card. I’ve bought a bunch of 5 quart bottles of Pennzoil Platinum for what nominally works out to $1/quart after the fuel rebates.
Thanks for that info. (Forced me to look up the acronym GTL...:)