how liquefied natural gas lng works
liquefied natural gas is primarily used to transport natural gas from one source to another exporters use this method when shipping to different countries and across bodies of water when pipelines aren t available there are two main approaches to liquefying natural gas in large quantitiesthe cascade process refers to the cooling of one gas by another gas resulting in a cascading effect the linde method is regenerative cooling where it is compressed cooled and expanded until it is eventually cooled into a liquid liquefied natural gas is best known as a transport tool but it is starting to gain mainstream adoption the automotive industry is evaluating the usefulness of gas as fuel for internal combustion engines in over the road trucking off road vehicles marine vessels and railways global demand for liquefied natural gas lng despite having one of the world s largest reserves of natural gas the united states imports a small percentage of its natural gas as liquefied natural gas from france and trinidad in fact as of 2019 the united states was the third largest exporter of lng and is expected to become the largest exporter by 2025 surpassing australia and qatar 1in 2020 the largest importers of u s lng were south korea japan and china 2 future demand growth will come from asian countries as they look toward lng as a replacement for coal as an energy source once the natural gas is liquefied it is then stored in special tankers and transported to its point of destination there is no possibility of lng exploding if there is any sort of leak or spill lng and the gases that it consists of do not explode in an open air environment once lng is delivered the natural gas is allowed to expand and convert back to its gaseous form by reheating a process known as regasification once regasified the natural gas is distributed via pipelines to consumers other major exporters of lng include indonesia nigeria russia and malaysia 3 russia has the world s largest supply of natural gas followed by iran and qatar 4 as of 2020 japan is the world s largest importer of natural gas primarily through increases in lng purchases 5the future of liquefied natural gas lng global demand for lng experienced rapid growth from near zero levels in 1970 to a meaningful market share today 51 of that demand came from china japan and south korea in 2019 5 the lng industry is booming as the world aims to break away from traditional and polluting energy sources such as oil and coal to focus on clean energy mckinsey and company estimates lng demand to increase 3 4 per year till 2035 gas will be the fastest growing fossil fuel with an estimated growth rate of 0 9 from 2020 to 2035 and in 2020 the gas demand decreased by 3 0 while the lng demand grew by 1 0 6