Why is Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) so important?

For starters, LNG is a key ingredient in making natural gas an internationally traded commodity, without this resource in use, the supply and demand for natural gas as a whole would dwindle. Not only that, but new developments have made the transportation of LNG across boarders easier and safer, which makes exporting and importing this resource more attractive.

In order to make LNG and other natural gas resources a globally traded commodity, countries with high reserves need to start exporting the natural gas to those countries with little to no reserves in natural gas.

For example, Russia has the largest number of natural gas reserves in the world; so much in fact that if they decided to export all of their reserves, they could power the entire world for several years alone.

On the other hand the United States has already taken steps towards becoming a net exporter of natural gas. There are plans to create a pipeline from the North Alaskan Coast inland. This project would not only provide many jobs for the unemployed, but also huge revenue for the state of Alaska. 2021 is the target year to have the pipeline fully up and running.

Now that natural gas is becoming a more popular use of energy, it would be a smart investment for countries to export their reserves into the global market. The use of natural gas has come a long way in the past couple years and it is projected to be the energy of the future.

This is from a 3-D animation tutorial of how the natural gas companies (Shell) turn natural gas into a liquid.