ABSTRACT
It is anticipated that by 2007 to 2008, significant quantities of base stocks will be produced from Fischer-Tropsch waxes by cracking and isomerization. These will be of very high quality, made by isomerization of wax, and therefore highly paraffinic and are expected to be very competitive with the synthetic poly-alphaolefins (PAOs) in cost, viscosity index (VI), volatility, and performance. The gasto-liquids (GTL) plants currently planned in Qatar are expected to produce more than 48,000 bpd
of base stocks-about 5% of the world’s current production and about 24% of the current volume of group II
+
III petroleum-based base stocks.
