# Is it more economical to liquify natural gas to ship overseas or convert it to propane (C3H8) and ship it overseas?

Problem statement: Companies want to frack oil wells and then export natural gas overseas using transport via high pressure pipeline followed by liquefaction at a terminal port.

If the methane component in natural gas ($$\ce{CH4}$$) can be converted to propane $$\ce{C3H8}$$, that would leave $$\ce{H2}$$ which can be combined with nitrogen to create ammonia-based fertilizer.

If the process is done at the well, propane could also be reverse-fed to wells in liquid form to use in place of water for fracking, after which the propane could be drawn off by lowering the pressure (such that it is then in the gas phase) and recompressed to liquid at $$160 \ \mathrm{psi}$$. This reduce water contamination and propane would not be lost.

In the liquid phase at $$160 \ \mathrm{psi}$$, propane has a volume $$\frac{1}{250}$$ as it does in the gas phase, and consequently propane would require a pipeline much smaller than natural gas for same volume sent.

On the receiving end, propane has a higher value for its ease of transport and storage as well as larger consumer base.

• One might suspect that the oil and gas companies have calculated out the economics pretty well, including all the handling and converting of LNG to LPG. (And the required costs of capital investments - a point often missed). – Jon Custer Sep 21 '16 at 16:47
• I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because there's no question there, just a bunch of statements. – Todd Minehardt Apr 13 at 21:02