Gas and LNG come out from oil’s shadow, part 1: The early years

The first part of our fourth chapter on the history of oil looks at the origins of gas and LNG—once considered a nuisance, now a fuel of the future

The history of natural gas cannot be separated from the story of crude and the once-widespread use of another, now-obscure hydrocarbon: coal gas. Until relatively recently, exploration efforts tended to focus on oil, so many gas discoveries were accidental or even inconvenient.  Just as refiners once considered gasoline to be a dangerous byproduct of kerosene manufacture, fit only for dumping in rivers, it was some time before gas could be regularly captured or utilised by drillers. Nevertheless, there were many early and localised examples of gas resources being used successfully on a large scale, most notably in the US in the 1880s. However, the key word is ‘localised’.  Until the inventio