Booming production of light condensates in the Middle East and gas-rich Asia may offer refiners a cheap and fast way to capture robust profits, helping ease capacity strains after years of slow investment.

An ultra-light form of oil, condensate is typically a by-product of natural gas production and its volumes are set to surge over the next few years as gas fields are actively developed to meet growing demand for cleaner fuels.
Condensate can be blended with normal crude to run in refineries but can also be processed in special units called splitters, an option that may be growing more attractive as the best way to capitalise on growing demand for premium fuels.
Condensate, when processed through a splitter, produces 50 percent naphtha and a large portion of diesel, products whose profit margins have soared over the past year, helping crude oil prices to more than double in two years.
"The demand for new condensate splitters is from both push and pull factors," said Al Troner, managing director of Asia Pacific Energy Consulting (APEC).
Middle East nations need more capacity to make transport fuels, particularly gasoline, he said. And major petrochemical makers in Asia such as China and Thailand require more naphtha as feedstock to produce ethylene, the basic building block for everything from compact discs to car dashboards, he added.
The attraction of a new splitter is enhanced by bullish forecasts for condensate supply.
Condensate output East of Suez -- the Middle East, Russian far east and Asia Pacific -- will more than triple between 2003 and 2013 to almost 6 million barrels per day (bpd), a joint study by Hawaii-based FACTS and Troner's APEC showed.
Production of condensate is outstripping that of crude, reserves of which are dwindling in this region. East of Suez condensate output will rise to over 14 percent of total liquids production by 2013, up from 5.4 percent 10 years ago.
APEC calculates that a condensate splitter with a 100,000-bpd capacity costs around $200-250 million.