Text “Storage and transport of natural gas”.

Because of its low density, it is not easy to store natural gas or transport by vehicle. Natural gas pipelines are impractical across oceans.

LNG carriers transport liquefied natural gas (LNG) across oceans, while tank trucks can carry liquefied or compressed natural gas (CNG) over shorter distances. Sea transport using CNG carrier ships that are now under development may be competitive with LNG transport in specific conditions.

Gas is turned into liquid at a liquefaction plant, and is returned to gas form at regasification plant at the terminal. Shipborne regasification equipment is also used. LNG is the preferred form for long distance, high volume transportation of natural gas, whereas pipeline is preferred for transport for distances up to 4,000 km over land and approximately half that distance offshore.

CNG is transported at high pressure, typically above 200 bars. Compressors and decompression equipment are less capital intensive and may be economical in smaller unit sizes than liquefaction/regasification plants. Natural gas trucks and carriers may transport natural gas directly to end-users, or to distribution points such as pipelines.

In the past, the natural gas which was recovered in the course of recovering petroleum could not be profitably sold, and was simply burned at the oil field in a process known as flaring. Flaring is now illegal in many countries. Additionally, companies now recognize that gas may be sold to consumers in the form of LNG or CNG, or through other transportation methods. The gas is now re-injected into the formation for later recovery. The re-injection also assists oil pumping by keeping underground pressures higher.

Natural gas is often stored underground inside depleted gas reservoirs from previous gas wells, salt domes, or in tanks as liquefied natural gas. The gas is injected in a time of low demand and extracted when demand picks up. Storage nearby end users helps to meet volatile demands, but such storage may not always be practicable.

LNG tanker shipments presently account for about 45% of global gas trade. According to International Gas Union, this share is expected to rise to 60% by 2030. This is attributable, first, to gas liquefaction performance improvements and progressively smaller costs, and, second, to rising LNG supply flexibility, to benefit effective market arbitrage. Another important advantage stems from avoiding protracted negotiations and challenges involved in finding optimum routes for major onshore pipeline projects.

Worldwide, liquefied natural gas (LNG) production has been largely driven by progressive gains in economics of shipping large LNG volumes by sea from major gas producers to (mostly remote) countries without their own gas production capacity.

In general terms, marine gas shipments to consumers can be summarized as follows. An onshore liquefaction plant is to be built, to deliver LNG to local storage. Then, using cryogenic pumps, LNG should be loaded into tankers. On delivery to a receiving terminal, LNG will be pumped into storage from which, as necessary, the volumes will be regasified and delivered by pipelines to consumers.

With 15 countries accounting for 84% of the worldwide extraction, access to natural gas has become an important issue in international politics, and countries vie for control of pipelines. In the first decade of the 21st century, Gazprom, the state-owned energy company in Russia, engaged in disputes with Ukraine and Belarus over the price of natural gas, which have created worries that gas deliveries to parts of Europe could be cut off for political reasons.