An Overview of Natural Gas Supply and Infrastructure

Energy is a catalyst for both primary and secondary sectoral growth and remains a key input for manufacturing and agriculture production, while the service sector is not an exception. Global nonrenewable energy consumption outpaces renewable energy consumption due to the cost of renewable energy installation and technical problems. Nevertheless, natural gas emits less pollution compared to other fossil fuels. Here, this chapter presents an overview of natural gas production and consumption, natural gas reserves, socioeconomic and environmental impacts of natural gas, natural gas infrastructure, and constraints. We document an increasing global trend of natural gas consumption from 16% in 1971 to 23% in 2019. Natural gas consumption is predicted to overtake oil as the largest primary energy consumption in 2030. Nevertheless, the availability of energy infrastructure such as pipelines is essential for natural gas production and consumption. However, the huge investment requirement for pipelines, bulk terminals, storage facilities, weather changes, and insecurity issues are considered potential challenges to natural gas production and consumption. Therefore, addressing the aforementioned issues substantially improves natural gas production and utilization which eventually leads to a low-carbon economy.