For millennia, people across the world have been obsessed with the

transmutation of elements, mainly the transformation of base metals into precious metals. Sir Isaac Newton wrote more than one million words on the art of alchemy, many times the amount he ever committed to paper on the subject of physics or mathematics. In the 20th century, the emergence of gas-to-liquids (GTL) technology, converting gaseous hydrocarbons into longer-chain hydrocarbons such as gasoline or diesel fuel, made the dreams of Newton and alchemical acolytes a reality. In the 21st century, GTL technology may be the worlds answer to affordable gasoline in an era of ever-dwindling oil reserves. In this piece you will find a comprehensive timeline of the GTL journey from the concept in 19th century France, through advances in World War II to its fruition in the modern day oil and gas industry.

1869 French chemist and politician Pierre Eugne Marcellin Berthelot, posits that coal could be converted into an oil-like product by chemical reduction.

1913 German chemist Friedrich Karl Rudolf Bergius develops the Bergius Hydrogenation Process to turn abundant East German brown coal into synthetic liquid fuel.

1914 The first industrial plant using the Bergius Hydrogenation Process is commissioned at the Th. Goldschmidt AG facility in Essen. It will become operational for the first time in 1919 after the end of World War I.

1920 The largest synthetic oil plant in Germany is planned at Leuna, close to eastern German lignite mines. Production would begin in 1927 and the plant would undergo rapid expansion in the following decade.

1922 Two German scientists, Franz Fischer and Hans Tropsch working at the Kaiser-WilhelmInstitut for Chemistry in Berlin develop the eponymous FischerTropsch process, a series of chemical reactions that converts carbon monoxide and hydrogen into liquid hydrocarbons.

1930 Fischer and Tropsch are awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry.

1931 Carl Bosch, founder of petrochemical giant IG Farben, and Bergius are awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry.

1935 UK company ICI build a coal to oil plant at Billingham, County Durham, known as the Oil Works. It is adapted to produce detergents and plasticisers after World War II due to an influx of foreign oil.

1938 On the eve of World War II, German oil consumption stood at 44.6 million barrels per annum. Imports from overseas accounted for 28 million barrels, 3.8 million barrels were imported from European sources, 3.8 million barrels were derived from domestic oil production and the remaining 9 million barrels, some 20 per cent, were produced synthetically by the Bergius and Fischer-Tropsch processes.

1943 Synthetic fuel production inside Nazi Germany reaches 36 million barrels per annum, just more than 50 per cent of the total of 71 million barrels available from all sources.

1944 The Allied Oil Campaign of World War II successfully neutralises Germanys 13 synthetic fuel plants. The Wehrmacht literally runs out of gas and grinds to a halt.

1948 Carthage Hydrocol constructs a plant converting natural gas to liquids in Brownsville, Texas. The 365,000 barrel per year facility was dismantled in 1953 after a dramatic rise in natural gas prices made it unprofitable.

1955 South African company Sasol opens its original coalto-liquids plant at Sasolburg to provide for domestic energy needs in the wake of international isolation.

1970s A series oil related crises, punctuated by the 1973 OPEC oil embargo and the Iranian Revolution of 1979 cause widespread economic havoc and global oil shortages. Companies that had eschewed coal-to-liquid and gas-toliquid technologies as economically unviable begin to reassess their stance.

1985 Mobil commissions the Montunui GTL plant in New Zealand to process natural gas into methanol and then gasoline. The 14,500 barrel per day facility runs successfully for 10 years but is converted to the production of technicalgrade methanol due to low prevailing crude prices in the 1990s.

1992 PetroSA commissions its GTL refinery at Mossel Bay. With a capacity of 36,000 barrels a day, the plant produces chemicals, gasoline, kerosene, diesel, lubricants and waxes.

2005 Professor Alan Goldman and his team at Rutgers University in New Jersey, USA announce breakthrough technology employing a pair of catalytic chemical reactions that make the FischerTropsch process commercially viable for coal conversion.

2007 Qatar and Sasol inaugurate the 34,000 barrels per day Oryx GTL plant in the Ras Laffan Industrial City, Qatar. Producing diesel and naphtha, it is touted as the world's first commercial-scale GTL plant.

2011 Qatar Petroleum and Royal Dutch Shell open their Pearl GTL facility in the Ras Laffan Industrial City, Qatar. Using Shells proprietary GTL technology, the facility is some four times larger than its nearest rival with the capacity to produce 140,000 barrels per day of GTL products and 120,000 barrels pre day oil equivalent of liquid petroleum gas (LPG) condensate and ethane.

2011 Sasol announces the Westlake GTL Project in Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana, to convert natural gas into diesel and jet fuel. The first facility of its kind in the USA, the project will feed from the Haynesville Shale field and rejuvenate the US shale bonanza, producing $2 per gallon fuel from shale gas.