Discuss the locational aspects of Natural Gas production around the World.
Natural gas occurs along with oil in the oil fields as well as separately in the gas fields. Natural gas came to be used at large scale only after the development of an extensive pipeline network in US. Thus large scale commercial production of natural gas is a rather recent industry. Today, most of the natural gas is produced as an independent product of an independent industry rather than as a by-product of oil mining. Geography of gas mining is quite different from that of oil mining in that while oil can be easily transported from oil wells to the consuming areas through various means of transport including pipelines, much of the gas readily escapes at the wells. Only that part of the gas that is trapped at the wells can be carried to the consuming areas by means of pipeline transport. Another method of transporting gas is by converting it into liquid form under pressure and carrying through various means of transport. However, transportation of gas in liquid form is more difficult.
The major producers of natural gas including US, Canada and the countries of the Western Europe all have large consuming areas close to the areas of gas production. Due to a large domestic demand, Russia has also developed her natural gas resources and it is today one of the leading producers in the world.
Though natural gas moves in the international market over long distances in the form of gas through pipelines and in the form of liquefied natural gas by means of ocean tankers, its movement is not comparable to that of crude oil.
Topics: GS-I: Factors Responsible for the Location of Industries in Various Parts of World