Resources of natural gas

It is therefore more relevant to examine wodd resources of natural gas in judging the supply potential for methanol. Wodd proved reserves amount to approximately 1.1 x 10 (40,000 TCF) (11). As seen in Figure 1, these reserves are distributed more widely than oil reserves. 

The most studied catalytic gas-phase reaction has been the transformation of methane to the higher hydrocarbons or oxygenated products. This reflects the large effort being made by catalytic chemists to find a simple process by which world s large resources of natural gas can be utilized. 

Figure 5.22. Total resources of natural gas estimated in place (unit Wy/m cf. caption to Fig. 5.15) (based upon data from World Energy Council, 1995 with area-based layout from Sorensen, 1999).

With the production of natural gas and coal now known, the year 2050 scenario assumes that the annual requirement is produced by each country in proportion to its total estimated resources of natural gas and coal, respectively. This creates a need for trade of these commodities, much in the same way as today. 

The possibility of combining producer gas and natural gas is also of particular interest and specially for Norway with large resources of natural gas. 

Table III represents the northern Alaska natural gas resource summary for conventional as well as unconventional resources. It should be noted that the undiscovered unconventional resource of natural gas in the form of gas hydrates Is only a rough estimate.

Clathrates have important implications industrially because they represent serious issues during transportation of natural gas with gas-lines in cold climates (see Section 19.3.5). Moreover, huge deposits of clathrates in the Arctic and offshore on the deep seafloor represent an enormous resource of natural gas for the future. Finally, due to the high greenhouse potential of methane gas a great concern exists about its release from clathrates due to global warming. 

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