Synthesis gas and Fischer Tropsch integrated process

A process for the synthesis of hydrocarbons comprising the steps of:

• (i) reforming a hydrocarbon feedstock containing one or more inert gases in one or more reforming stages to generate a synthesis gas comprising the one or more inert gases, steam, hydrogen and carbon monoxide,
• (ii) cooling the synthesis gas to below the dew point to condense water and removing the water to give a de-watered synthesis gas,
• (iii) synthesising hydrocarbons from said de-watered synthesis gas by the Fischer-Tropsch reaction and separating at least part of the synthesised hydrocarbons, to give a tail gas comprising the one or more inert gases, hydrogen, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide,
• (iv) subjecting a mixture of at least part of the tail gas and steam to the water-gas shift reaction, thereby forming a shifted tail gas having increased hydrogen and carbon dioxide contents,
• (v) subjecting the shifted tail gas to one or more stages of membrane separation thereby generating an inert gas-containing gas mixture and one or more of a hydrogen-containing gas mixture, a carbon dioxide-containing gas mixture and a hydrocarbon-containing gas mixture, and
• (vi) using one or more of said hydrogen-containing gas mixture, said carbon dioxide-containing gas mixture and said hydrocarbon-containing gas mixture in a reformer feed stream, wherein the hydrocarbon feedstock is used as a component of the sweep gas on the permeate side of at least one of the membrane separation stages.