Understand the chain
Explainers
Every page here opens with a one-sentence definition, explains the mechanism rather than the marketing, and ends with assets from the tracker so the idea connects to real projects.
Start here
- How LNG worksLiquefied natural gas is natural gas chilled to about minus 162 degrees Celsius, at which point it becomes a liquid roughly 600 times smaller than the gas, so it can be shipped where no pipeline runs.
- Mtpa, bcm and cubic metresLNG capacity is quoted in three incompatible units, and the two conversions that matter are 1 million tonnes a year equals about 1.36 billion cubic metres of gas a year, and 1 cubic metre of liquid equals about 600 cubic metres of gas.
- What terminal status actually meansA project status describes how far an LNG terminal or train has progressed, and the gap between proposed and operating is the single most misread number in the industry.
Making it
- Liquefaction trains explainedA liquefaction train is one complete, self-contained refrigeration line that chills treated natural gas until it condenses, and a large modern train produces roughly 5 to 8 million tonnes of LNG a year.
- FLNG explainedFloating liquefaction, or FLNG, is a complete LNG plant built on a ship-shaped hull and moored over or near a gas field, so gas is liquefied at sea and loaded straight onto carriers without any onshore terminal.
- FSRU versus onshore regasificationAn FSRU is a ship that stores LNG and turns it back into gas while moored, doing the job of an onshore import terminal without the onshore construction.
Moving it
- LNG carrier anatomyAn LNG carrier is a ship built around insulated cargo tanks that hold liquefied gas at minus 162 degrees, with an engine able to burn the cargo vapour that inevitably boils off during the voyage.
- Membrane versus Moss tanksCargo containment is the system that holds LNG at minus 162 degrees inside a ship, and it comes in two families: membranes, which are thin barriers supported by the hull, and free-standing tanks, which carry their own load.
- Boil-off and reliquefactionBoil-off is the small fraction of an LNG cargo that evaporates each day as heat leaks into the tanks, and it is what keeps the rest of the cargo cold.
- Who builds LNG shipsLNG carriers are built by a very small group of shipyards, concentrated in South Korea, China and Japan, because the cargo containment work demands skills and facilities that take years to develop.