Natural Gas Facts

Here are some natural gas facts to help you understand the commodity that we’re dealing with. Let’s start with the obvious question of what is natural gas?

Natural gas is a fossil fuel comprised mostly of methane although there are also quantities of ethane, propane and butane. Other elements, such as carbon dioxide, have been removed before the natural gas reaches consumers.

What is Natural Gas?

How natural gas is formed is really quite interesting and it involves the decay of organic material. Old swamps and marshes from prehistoric times are places where natural gas is found and old rubbish dumps from more recent times are also a source of natural gas but usually not in commercial quantities.

The history of natural gas and its uses can be traced by to shortly after the birth of Christ but the first well that was drilled to tap a natural gas deposit was sunk in 1821 in New York. The first attempt to pipe natural gas was made in 1891 but it wasn’t until after World War II that the use of became widespread. Today natural gas is used extensively throughout the United States.
See the Step by Step Process of Drilling Natural Gas Wells

Gas-fired electric generation is the only sector that has experienced a significant change, with an increase of demand from 4.6 Tcf/year (12.6 Bcf/day) in 1998 to 6.9 Tcf/year (18.9 Bcf/day) in 2007 (an almost 50% increase). The 10-year average annual percentage change for this sector is 12.4%