Gas and LNG come out from oil’s shadow, part 2: The power of pipelines

Gas is difficult to move compared with oil, requiring additional infrastructure. The second part of our history of gas examines how expanding pipeline networks made it possible to monetise the fuel

The increasing adoption of electricity and lightbulbs threatened demand for coal and natural gas in the later decades of the 19th century, but at around the same time, developments in Pittsburgh and Indiana demonstrated for the first time—aside from Sichuan’s salt sector—the industrial potential of the light hydrocarbon.   The Haymaker brothers, Michael and Obediah, were drilling for oil in Pennsylvania during that state’s oil boom, when they were alerted to a gas seepage in a location known as Turtle Creek. There they struck significant volumes of gas in 1878, although it was not until 1883 that entrepreneurs Joseph Pew and Edward Emerson bought into the project.   By 1884, gas from the Hay