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LNG Facts

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What is LNG?

Liquefied natural gas (LNG) is the same gas you use to heat your home (predominantly gaseous methane or CH₄), that has been super-cooled into a liquid state at approximately -260° F (-162° C) and at near atmospheric pressure.

Why Liquefy Natural Gas?

Natural gas currently makes up about 1/4^th of the world's energy supply, and demand for natural gas is expected to grow rapidly as petroleum reserves are being depleted.

Natural gas is liquefied mainly for storage and transportation purposes. Converting natural gas into LNG reduces the volume of the gas by roughly 620:1, meaning that one ship can transport 620 times as much gas in one trip.

LNG can be stored at a cryogenic facility, distributed (as liquid) for use as engine fuel, or transformed back into a gas and fed directly into pipelines.

Advantages of LNG

Natural gas is clean, cheap and abundant, and used as a motor fuel it is capable of bridging the gap between today's 'dirty' fuels and the renewable fuels of the future.

Natural gas is clean.
As one of the world's cleanest burning fuels, natural gas will be instrumental in reducing the currently unacceptable levels of Green House Gas emissions in the near term. Natural gas fueled engines reduce Carbon Dioxide (CO₂) by 20%; Nitrous Oxides (NO_x) by 80%; and Sulfur Oxides (SO_x) and particulate emissions (smoke) by nearly 100%.

Natural gas is cheap.
Natural gas can represent up to a 40% price advantage over light distillate fuels, such as diesel, when considered on an energy equivalent basis, and, according to the International Energy Agency, these savings are expected to increase to 50% by 2035.

Natural gas is abundant.
With large reserves (including newly discovered reserves of shale gas) in Russia, North America, South East Asia, North Africa, and the Middle East, recent estimates put the global reserves of natural gas at over 6,000 trillion cubic feet.(1) The US alone is said to have enough of a supply to last over 100 years. And unlike many renewable technologies, the technologies required to use natural gas as a marine vessel and motor vehicle fuel are already developed, proven and available now.

Natural Gas in Society

Relatively clean natural gas can serve as an importnat bridge to a greener future. Natural gas-fueled vessels and motor vehicles are already increasingly being deployed. In addition to dozens of marine vessel applications, there are now more than 12 million natural gas vehicles worldwide. In 2009, over 300,000 million cubic feet of natural gas were used for vehicle fuel. (2)

Safety

In more than 50 years of commercial use, the natural gas industry has had an exemplary safety record. The industry has developed systems and procedures for handling LNG that ensure public security in the unlikely event of an accident.  Consequently, there have been very few major incidents resulting from the use of LNG.  The production, storage, transport and use of LNG is as safe as (or safer than) that of any other commercial fuel.

For more information, please see the US Department of Energy's Fossil Energy website.

(1) http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/international/reserves.html
(2) IEA