While humankind has been aware of the existence of natural gas
since ancient times, its industrial use is relatively recent,
with the first natural gas wells drilled in North America in the
19th century. The first true natural gas processing plants began
operating in Canada at the beginning of the 20th century, but
they produced gas mainly for local heating and lighting. Natural
gas has become increasingly popular since the 1940s, and its
consumption has grown steadily. Fig. 1 shows increasing gas
consumption over the 45 years to 2010. Natural gas is, and will
remain, a vital component of the global energy supply, helped by
its environmental advantage over other fossil fuels and by
growing demand from developing countries. Numerous factors have
contributed to the evolution of the natural gas industry over
time: - The need to handle increasingly difficult resourcese.g.,
high-contaminants-content reserves, stranded reserves, resources
in harsh geographical locations or climates, and subsea reserves
- Energy-eff