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About the Museum History of Gas Making gas from coal Making gas from oil Natural gas conversion Gas distribution Gas in the home Strange but true! Return to Home Page |
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| Gas Production - The Natural Gas Era |
| The existence of natural gas had been known for centuries, it was considered a dangerous nuisance in mines where it seeped from the coal face and caused explosions and underground fires. In 1959 the first natural gas was imported into Britain, brought in liquefied form from the Gulf of Mexico. The experiment proved so successful that within 3 years LNG was being imported in bulk from Algeria. Two ships regularly made the 5 day trip to Canvey Island in the Thames estuary each carrying 12,000 tons of liquid methane. A total of about 700,000 tons a year were delivered in this way, to be used by 8 of the Regions via a new pipeline grid built to transport gas at high pressure to most of the UK. Natural gas offers an important benefit over town gas; it is 'clean' and burns without giving rise to pollution from smoke, soot, dust, grit and sulphur dioxide. It enabled gas users to comply with the Clean Air Act 1956. Another important advantage is that it is non-toxic because it doesn't contain carbon monoxide which in the past had been responsible for a number of deaths. In 1959 the world's largest natural gas field, some 300 miles square, was discovered in Holland. Exploration began in the North Sea and six years later in 1965, natural gas was discovered in the West Sole area of the North Sea, 40 miles offshore. This was followed a year later by the discovery of the largest North Sea field, Lehman Bank. Other gas fields followed and soon there was enough gas to supply the whole of Britain for many years. Within 18 months of the first finds natural gas was supplying 10% of Britain's needs. Within 5 years over half of those needs were supplied. Natural gas has different characteristics to town gas and this meant that all gas appliances had to be converted to use the new fuel. See The Natural Gas Conversion Programme |