Background on Liquefied Natural Gas Shipping and Facilities

Natural gas has been safely shipped as LNG by ship and truck for decades. These shipments meet demand in locations lacking access to natural gas shipments through pipelines, including markets overseas. Decades of transporting LNG by ship for import and export markets and by truck to fill gaps in the pipeline network have shaped the location and capacity of the country’s LNG facilities. The prospects for significant future demand from these and other LNG facilities for shipments by rail tank car remain unclear. A possible advantage of using tank car over portable tanks and cargo tank motor vehicles is the added cargo capacity, which is about three times greater for a tank car. For this advantage to be exploited, however, the origin and destination of the LNG shipments would need rail access. Because rail access has not been a priority for the siting of LNG export and import terminals and peak-shaving plants, this pattern would need to change. Nevertheless, the U.S. freight rail network is extensive. Other possibilities for rail demand include service to regions that lack significant gas pipeline capacity, industries that are in remote locations but need natural gas, and the growing market for LNG as a bunker fuel for marine vessels. In the absence of more information about this future demand profile, it is not possible to know whether and to what degree trains will transport LNG in shipments consisting of large or small blocks of tank cars and on a well-defined or more dispersed set of routes. © 2022 National Research Council. All rights reserved.