Natural Gas Processing from Midstream to Downstream
by Nimir O. Elbashir, Mahmoud M. El-Halwagi, Ioannis G. Economou, Kenneth R. Hall
1 Introduction to Natural Gas Monetization
Nimir O. Elbashir
Petroleum Engineering Program, Texas A&M University at Qatar, Qatar
TEES Gas and Fuels Research Center, Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station, USA
Chapter Menu
- 1.1 Introduction
- 1.2 Natural Gas Chain
- 1.3 Monetization Routes for Natural Gas
- 1.4 Natural Gas Conversion to Chemicals and Fuels
- 1.5 Summary
1.1 Introduction
Natural gas, mainly methane, has been known and utilized since the ancient Greek and Chinese civilizations. Natural gas began playing a prominent role in the energy market as early as the 1780s, during the start of the Industrial Revolution, where it was used in the United Kingdom as a source of lighting for homes and streets. Baltimore became the first city in the United States to light its streets using natural gas by the mid‐1880s.
Currently, natural gas enjoys a significant share in the primary energy mix market compared to other fossil fuel sources (oil and coal) as well as renewables and other sources (hydro and nuclear). As shown in Figure 1.1 the contribution of natural gas as a primary energy source increased by almost 40% from 1995 to 2017, and as the fastest‐growing fuel per annum, its share is expected to reach 30% by 2035 [1, 2]. Countries with the largest natural gas reserves are Russia (∼1,688 trillion cubic feet (tcf)), Iran (∼1,187 tcf), Qatar (∼890 tcf), the United States of America (∼388.8 tcf), Turkmenistan (∼353 tcf), Saudi Arabia (∼290 tcf), United Arab ...