Dry natural gas

Dry natural gas is what remains in natural gas after:

  • the liquefiable hydrocarbons have been removed.
  • any significant amounts of non-hydrocarbon gases have been removed.

Dry natural gas is also called consumer grade natural gas.

Dry natural gas is the key measure of the natural gas output of a oil or gas producer, as it is a saleable product, other products (useful or not) removed.

Dry natural gas is largely methane, and some reserves consist of gas that is already dry. “Wet” gas also contains other gases such as ethane, propane and butane that can be separated by being liquefied (because they have higher boiling points than methane) and sold separately. Some reserves have a high proportion of these.

Natural gas can also contain significant amounts of less useful gases such as carbon dioxide, the amount of which may need to be reduced before the gas is saleable.

Copyright Graeme Pietersz © 2005-2019