The sole reason for liquefying natural gas is to facilitate its shipment from source to point of use. Pipelines are not yet practical to move gas across oceans, except for relatively short distances between offshore terminals and land based infrastructure.
Liquefaction processes were developed as a means of reducing the space required to store and transport large quantities of gas.
The very first LNG tanker ‘Methane Princess’ was a converted liberty vessel, into which free-standing aluminium cargo tanks were fitted and insulated with balsa wood.
It was operated by British Gas starting in 1959 to transport loads of 5,000 cu.m (3,625 MT), of LNG from the Lake Charles LNG terminal in Louisiana, to Europe’s first commercial LNG import terminal at Canvey Island on the Thames Estuary.
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