Royal Dutch Shell chief financial officer Simon Henry announced April 26 at a first-quarter 2012 earnings conference in London that the company has expanded its list of possible sites for a future gas-to-liquids (GTL) plant in the U.S. to include Texas as well as Louisiana.

A U.S. GTL plant, if built, would employ “basically the same conversion process and plant design that we have just brought online in Qatar,” Henry said.

The Shell GTL technology focuses mainly upon the production of Fischer-Tropsch diesel, kero-jet, naphtha and waxes – all of which are relatively strong growth markets (in contrast to gasoline markets, which are shrinking in the U.S.)

“We are investigating opportunities in Texas and Louisiana, looking for potential sites. We are updating our own design, based on our experience in Qatar and looking to assess what the overall economics would be,” Henry said.

“Clearly we need to have some confidence that that arbitrage opportunity [that is, relatively low U.S. gas prices versus crude oil prices] will last for 20 to 30 years, but as the [U.S.] shale gas supply demand balance evolves, it looks like that might be the case.

“It could be attractive, but we are some way away from FID [final investment decision]. It will be certainly not within the next year or so before we get to an investment decision and the latter part of the decade before we get to production,” Henry added.