We use natural gas to heat and light our homes. The uses of natural gas are growing in numbers every day. Oil and gas companies must facilitate the movement and processing of these natural gasses from the ground to our homes. This process must be executed effectively, efficiently and safely. Regulations are in place to ensure the safest best ways to transport and store natural gas. The transportation systems in place to move natural gas from its source to our homes are very elaborate and complicated to describe. Natural gas is transported through an intricate network of pipelines from the ground and processing plants to its destination.

The first place that natural gas is transported is from the ground to the processing plant. These pipes are known as the gathering system, in essence gathering the gas that will be cleaned and processed into different useable forms. Thiols are added to the gas during processing. We add these substances because natural gas has no odor and thiols ensure that we can smell it if it ever leaks. Once it is processed, it is carried through an interstate or an intrastate pipeline network. Intrastate pipelines shuttle natural gasses around inside of one particular state. Interstate pipelines cross state lines and travel all over the country.

Pipes used to transport natural gas are made of carbon steel. Each section of pipe is sent through a barrage of rigorous testing to determine if it is resilient enough to withstand the pressure involved in transporting natural gas.

Gas must be sent on its journey under very high pressures. This keeps the gas in liquid form. It also significantly reduces the volume of the gas traveling through the pipeline, by about six hundred times. As a bonus feature, the gas in a pressurized environment acts as a propulsion mechanism, greatly reducing the time that it takes to move the gas through the pipes from the plant to the areas of highest natural gas use.

Natural gas can also be transported by boat. Huge tankers carrying liquid natural gas can carry natural gas to areas and countries where pipelines can not be built. Most natural gas tankers can carry over forty million gallons of pressurized, liquid natural gas in its tanks. Spherical storage tanks carry the gas across oceans and to far off destinations. Natural gas must be cooled to a temperature of negative two-hundred sixty degrees to become a liquid and reduce its volume to one six-hundredth of its original volume. The tanks are heavily reinforced to keep the gasses pressurized, cooled and in liquid form. Each tanker generally has five tanks built into it. Each single tank holds around 8 million gallons of liquid natural gas. That is about enough natural gas to provide all of the energy and electricity that the United States needs for about five minutes.

The processes involved in transporting natural gas can be very complex, dangerous and require lots of human labor. The pipeline industry is completely dedicated to ensuring the safety of the public, its workers and the environment.