There is a need to convert the natural gas reserves available in Saudi
Arabia to value-added products preferably transportable products (fue
ls) and/or chemicals. The proposed method makes use of what is known a
s non-catalytic partial oxidation of sour natural gas. The method offe
rs a promising alternative in utilizing surplus natural gas inexpressi
bly by eliminating the costly gas sweetening process needed for conven
tional steam-reforming. The work presented in this paper is carried ou
t to validate the technical feasibility of the proposed process. Preli
minary results are reported using computer-aided process simulation so
ftware. (C) 1998 International Association for Hydrogen Energy.