Natural gas liquefication dates back to the 19th century,
when British chemist and physicist Michael Faraday experimented with liquefying
different types of gases, including natural gas. German engineer Karl van Linde
built the first practical compressor refrigerator machine in Munich in 1873.
The first liquefied natural gas plant was built in West Virginia
in 1912, while the first commercial liquefication plant was built in Cleveland,
Ohio, in 1941. The LNG was stored in insulated tanks at atmospheric pressure.
Today there are 113 active LNG facilities spread across the
United States, with a higher concentration of them in the northeastern states.
Transportation on the High Seas
Liquefying natural gas made it possible to transport the fuel
to distant destinations. In January 1959, the world's first LNG tanker, the
Methane Pioneer (a converted World War II Liberty freighter) carried liquefied
natural gas from Lake Charles, La., to Canvey Island, United Kingdom. This voyage
demonstrated that large quantities of liquefied natural gas could be transported
safely across the ocean. The Methane Pioneer subsequently carried seven additional
LNG cargoes to Canvey Island.
In 1964, the British Gas Council began importing liquefied
natural gas from Algeria, making the United Kingdom the world's first LNG importer
and Algeria its first exporter. After the concept was shown to work in the United
Kingdom, additional marine LNG liquefication plants and import terminals were
built in both the Atlantic and Pacific regions.
Marine Terminals Built in the United States
U.S. Natural gas companies built four marine liquefied
natural gas terminals between 1971 and 1980: Lake Charles (operated by
CMS Energy), Everett, Mass. (operated by Tractebel), Elba Island, Ga.,
(operated by El Paso Energy) and Cove Point, Md. (operated by Dominion).
After receiving a peak receipt volume of 253 billion
cubic feet (BCF) in 1979 (which represented 1.3 percent of U.S. gas demand),
LNG imports declined for two reasons:
One was because deregulation led to increasing North
American domestic natural gas production.
The second was because of price disputes with Algeria,
then the sole LNG provider to the United States.
Elba Island and Cove Point were mothballed in 1980 and Lake
Charles and Everett suffered from very low utilization.
The first exports of liquefied natural gas from the United
States to Asia occurred in 1969, with Alaskan LNG being sent to Japan from the
Kenai Peninsula LNG plant. The LNG market in Europe and Asia continued to grow
rapidly from that point on.
Renewed Interest in LNG
In 1999, the first Atlantic Basin LNG liquefication plant
came on line in Trinidad and Tobago. This event, combined with increasing U.S.
natural gas demand, particularly for electric power generation and increasing
natural gas prices, resulted in renewed interest in liquefied natural gas for
the American market. As a result, the two mothballed U.S. liquefied natural
gas receiving terminals were reactivated, Elba Island in 2001 and Dominion Cove
Point in 2003.
