LNG Storage & Transport

LNG Storage & Transport. LNG has been safely transported across the oceans for more than 60 million miles of safe transport during the past 40 years, and these double-hulled tankers are specially designed and built to carry LNG. On land, LNG is stored at atmospheric pressure 15 in specially engineered and constructed double-walled storage tanks, and most of these tanks have three-foot concrete exterior walls and an inner tank that is constructed from a steel-nickel metal alloy specifically designed to accommodate the cold LNG. Should a leak develop in the inner wall, all of the LNG would be contained in the space be- tween the inner and outer walls, sophisticated monitoring systems provide con- stant surveillance for any internal leaks. LNG is converted back into natural gas by pumping the fluid from the storage tank and heating it to regasify the liquid, and the gas is then ready for delivery through natural gas pipelines to homes and businesses. But in certain cases the construction of gas pipelines is technically impossible or too expensive, for example to bring Nigerian gas to Europe, or to take gas from Qatar to Japan. To resolve this problem, a method of maritime transport based on the liquefaction of the gas (LNG, liquified natural gas) has 15 Atmospheric pressure is the pressure at any given po int in the Earth’s atmosphere. In most circumstances atmospheric pressure is closely ap- proximated by the hydrostatic pressure caused by the weight of air above the measurement point. Low pressure areas have less atmospheric mass above their location, whereas high pressure areas have more atmospheric mass above their location. Similarly, as elevation increases there is less overlying atmospheric mass, so that pressure d ecreases with increasing elevation. A column of air 1 square inch in cross section, measured from sea level to the top of the atmosphere, wou ld weigh approximately 14.7 lbf. A 1 m ² (11 sq ft) column of air would weigh about 100 kilonewtons (equivalent to a mass of 10.2 tonnes at the surface).

LNG Storage & Transport

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