Royal Dutch Shell Plc's gas-to- liquids refinery in Qatar will start operations in 2010 and work on the plant is now 45 percent complete, The Peninsula reported, citing a company official.

The Pearl GTL production units will have a phased start-up from 2010 to 2012 and a special port facility has been built at Ras Laffan to import construction materials for the project, said Andrew Brown, Shell's country chairman in Qatar and managing director of Pearl GTL, according to the newspaper.

Shell is tapping Qatari gas reserves, the world's third- largest, to build the Pearl plant, which will be the world's biggest refinery making transport fuels from natural gas. Shell, Europe's largest oil company, has said the Pearl plant will produce 140,000 barrels a day of liquids fuels and 120,000 barrels a day of condensate and liquefied petroleum gases.