lecture 2

• natural gas
Background
• Gas is often referred to as natural gas because it is a naturally
occurring hydrocarbon. It is colorless and consists mainly of methane,
which is the simplest hydrocarbon. Natural gas is extracted by drilling
wells into the ground, through the geographic layers, to reach the gas
deposits. Natural gas travels from the wellhead to end consumers
through a series of pipelines. These pipelines, including flow lines,
gathering lines, transmission lines, distribution lines, and service lines,
carry gas at varying rates of pressure
Raw natural gas comes from three types of
wells:
• 1. Oil wells, where natural gas is typically termed associated gas. This
gas can exist separate from oil in the formation (free gas) or dissolved
in the crude oil (dissolved gas). Dissolved gas is that portion of the gas
dissolved in the crude, and associated gas (called gas cap) is free gas
in contact with the crude oil. Natural gas extracted from oil wells is
called casinghead gas.
• 2. Gas wells, in which there is little or no crude oil, is termed
nonassociated gas. Gas wells typically produce raw natural gas by
itself (dry gas). 3. Condensate wells, producing free natural gas along
with a semiliquid hydrocarbon condensate (wet gas).
• All crude oil reservoirs contain dissolved gas, and may or may not
contain associated gas. Whatever the source of the natural gas, once
separated from crude oil (if present) it commonly exists in mixtures of
methane with other hydrocarbons, principally ethane, propane,
butane, and pentanes. In addition, raw natural gas contains water
vapor along with some nonhydrocarbons such as hydrogen sulfide
(H2S), carbon dioxide (CO2), helium, nitrogen, and other compounds.
These characteristics of natural gas are illustrated as shown in Figure
4.1.
Properties and Gas Specs
• Natural gas is a combustible gas, about 40% lighter than air, so should
it ever leak, it can dissipate into the air. Other positive attributes of
natural gas are a high ignition temperature and a narrow flammability
range, meaning natural gas will ignite at temperatures above 1100°F
and burn at a mix of 4%–15% volume in air. Other properties are
summarized as follows:
• Clean burning (The simpler molecular structure of natural gas enables
a clean burn, so its combustion does not produce solid particles or
sulfur.) • Efficient • Abundant
• Odorless (Because it is odorless, mercaptan is added to the gas as.) •
Tasteless and nontoxic • Nonabsorbing • Noncorrosive • Explosive
under pressure
Applications and Uses
• There are so many different applications for this fossil fuel that it is
hard to provide an exhaustive list of everything it is used for. Natural
gas is used across all sectors, in varying amounts. Most important are
the following: • Residential use • Commercial use • Use in industry •
Transportation sector • Electric generation using natural gas