The aim of this study is to provide a systems perspective on shale gas monetization to fuels and chemicals. The properties of shale reservoirs and shale gas production processes will be discussed briefly before focusing on four main building blocks of the chemicals industry: methanol, ethylene, propylene, and butadiene. For each of these building blocks, the main derivatives and their chemical processes are discussed as well as the changes incurred on their markets because of the shale gas boom. In addition, the chemistry of gas-to-liquids (GTL) technology and existing commercial applications of it are detailed. Also, an overview of existing and proposed plants for each of the five monetization pathways will be given. Based on this survey, an optimization formulation is developed and solved to determine the optimal pathways of a given shale gas resource. The objective of the optimization formulation is to maximize profit based on capital and operating costs of the given processes, feedstock prices, the sales prices of the produced chemicals while accounting for supply, demand, technical, and environmental factors (e.g., CO2). A case study is solved for the Barnett and Eagle Ford shale formations.
