Energy security

Learn how energy security shapes power systems, from reliable supply and grid resilience to fuel risks, geopolitics, and blackouts.

What is LNG? How natural gas learned to cross an ocean

Featured image showing natural gas being cooled into LNG and transported by an LNG carrier across the sea.

Natural gas has one awkward physical problem: as a gas, it takes up an enormous amount of space. LNG solves that by cooling natural gas to around −162°C, shrinking its volume roughly 600 times and turning a pipeline-bound fuel into something that can cross oceans on ships. That simple phase change quietly transformed natural gas from a regional commodity into a global one.