LNG: How Gas Became a Global Shipping Business
Then the chain itself: cleaning raw gas of water, carbon dioxide, mercury and heavy hydrocarbons; the cooling cascade that shrinks gas to roughly 1/600th of its volume at a cost of 30-50% of a liquefaction plant's own capital; the Moss sphere and membrane tank designs that carry it at sea; and the fixed terminals and floating FSRUs that turn it back into gas on arrival.
The video does not look away from the costs. A 2023 Cornell preprint's disputed finding that LNG's life-cycle footprint can run 24-274% higher than coal's, once methane leakage is counted; the multi-billion-dollar, multi-year cost of every stage in the chain, and the 15-20 year contracts that justify building it; and the close read of Shell's own decision - more capacity is not, by itself, cheaper gas for the buyer.
Every figure is on screen with its source and date.
Educational documentary. Not financial or investment advice.
In these topics
Chapters
- A tanker, not a pipe
- From pipeline gas to a cold export idea
- Cleaning the gas
- Cooling to minus 162 degrees
- Loading a floating thermos
- Turning liquid back into gas
- Who exports, who imports
- The flexibility sea transport buys
- The leak nobody sees
- The price of the chain
- A new terminal is not cheap gas
- Energy security, with strings attached
Sources and credits
Primary sources
- Petronas/LNG Canada joint venture FID release (October 2018), and BIV/Natural Gas World/The Energy Year reporting of first production (2024-2025) - Phase 1's October 2018 FID and June 2025 first LNG.
- US Energy Information Administration, 'Today in Energy', LNG shipping history and process explainers; corroborated by LNG Industry's 50th-anniversary piece and the Methane Princess entry - the Methane Pioneer's 25 January 1959 test voyage from Louisiana to the UK.
- LNG Industry, '50 years of LNG'; Canvey Island local history - the Methane Princess and Methane Progress carrying the first commercial LNG cargo, Arzew, Algeria to Canvey Island, UK, October 1964.
- Gas Processing News, 'Process selection and recent design innovations for LNG plants - Part 1', 2017 - liquefaction temperature (-160 to -162C), roughly 1/600th volume reduction, and refrigeration/liquefaction at 30-50% of a plant's capital cost.
- 2025 global LNG trade data as reported by the Oman Observer, Mining Weekly and the Express Tribune (via the International Gas Union) - 436.98 million tonnes traded, the top three exporters and importers, and Europe's import growth.
- Robert Howarth (Cornell University), 'The Greenhouse Gas Footprint of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) Exported from the United States', preprint submitted for peer review, October 2023, as reported by DieselNet, Gas Strategies and RenewEconomy - the 24-274% life-cycle finding and the 2.6% leak-rate assumption it depends on. A PREPRINT, NOT PEER REVIEWED AT TIME OF WRITING - stated on screen.
- S&P Global Commodity Insights and Compressor Tech2 reporting of Europe's 2022 regasification capacity additions - 14.5 mtpa EU-wide, 8.8 mtpa in the Netherlands (Gate expansion, Eemshaven FSRU), 5.5 mtpa in Germany (Wilhelmshaven FSRU, December 2022).
Not regulated financial advice.