Course
Learn LNG
The chain end to end, in 7 tracks. Written for someone who wants to understand how liquefied natural gas actually works rather than skim a summary, and linked throughout to the terminals, pipelines and firms in the tracker so every idea has real examples attached.
Most explanations of LNG are written in the abstract. This one is not: a passage about membrane containment can end with the ships that use it, and a passage about floating regasification can end with every FSRU import terminal by country, because the database sits underneath. That is the reason to read it here rather than anywhere else.
22 of 65 modules are written. The rest are listed so the shape of the course is visible while it is built. Definitions for the vocabulary are in the glossary, and the unit converter handles the arithmetic that trips most people up.
The tracks
In the order gas moves, which is also the order they are worth reading in.
What liquefied natural gas is, why chilling it to minus 162 degrees is worth the trouble, and how to read the three incompatible units the industry quotes capacity in.
8 modules · 8 written
How raw feed gas is cleaned of everything that would freeze, then chilled through a refrigeration cycle until it condenses, and why a handful of firms build the equipment at the cold end.
9 modules · 2 written
The largest track: containment and insulation, boil-off and reliquefaction, three generations of propulsion, the voyage cycle, cargo operations, chartering and the yards that can build the ships.
21 modules · 9 written
What an import terminal does with a cargo once it arrives: storage, vaporisation, send-out into the grid, and the floating units that do the same job without the onshore construction.
7 modules · 1 written
How cargoes are actually bought and sold: long-term contracts and their price formulas, the spot benchmarks, destination clauses, and what has to be true before a project reaches a final investment decision.
8 modules · 0 written
How LNG behaves when it escapes, the codes and bodies that govern ships and terminals, and the honest version of the emissions argument including methane slip and upstream leakage.
7 modules · 1 written
What a tracker can and cannot tell you: what each project status means, why capacity figures disagree between sources, and how to cite this site responsibly.
5 modules · 1 written
If you want something shorter
The explainers are the written modules on their own, if you would rather pick one topic than follow a course. The glossary defines the vocabulary in a sentence each. And the methodology explains how the underlying data is assembled, which is a different question from how LNG works.