Natural Gas (NG) and Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG)
Paving the Way for a Lower-carbon Energy Economy
Riding the LNG Wave
Global demand for electricity continues to grow - driven by factors such as an expanding population, higher incomes, record temperatures, electrification and digitalization. While renewables are expanding rapidly, natural gas continues to play a significant role in the global energy landscape - seen by many players as a valuable bridge towards a lower-carbon, renewable-rich environment. In 2024, natural gas saw the strongest demand growth among fossil fuels at 28 percent. And this trend is set to become more pronounced given that a new wave of LNG projects is projected to add almost 50% to available export capacity by 2030.
At Linde, we have over 40 years of experience in the natural gas business. Our broad product portfolio supports the entire natural gas value chain - from removal of impurities through extraction of valuable by-products to liquefaction, storage, distribution and regasification. Our proven expertise is helping customers around the world to unlock emerging opportunities in gaseous and liquefied natural gas (LNG), liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and natural gas liquids (NGL) as well as helium.
Read on for a snapshot of our product offering related to the natural gas business.
Small- to Mid-scale LNG Plants with LICOM™ and LIMUM™ Technologies
Our comprehensive StarLNG® product portfolio was developed specifically to meet demands for cost efficiency, short lead times and construction flexibility. It leverages our vast experience in air separation to deliver standardized, modularized designs for the rapid deployment of small- to mid-scale LNG plants. Spanning the full range of liquefaction technologies, the StarLNG toolbox concept covers a wide range of process variations to support individual feedstock composition, plant capacity and operational requirements.
Highlights of our StarLNG family include our innovative LIMUM process. This highly efficient process uses a single mixed refrigerant (SMR) cycle. It is supplied with plate-fin heat exchangers (PFHE) to support capacities in a single train of up to approx. 1,000 tons per day (tpd). For higher volume requirements, LIMUM can also be fitted with our proprietary coil-wound heat exchangers (CWHE). This design variant supports capacities up to around 3,000 tpd in a single train.
We recently expanded our StarLNG® family to give customers even more flexibility and address growing demand for renewable gas liquefaction plants. Our LICOM plants are designed specifically to enable efficient liquefaction of small gas volumes and renewable gases (such as biogas, landfill gases and synthetic natural gas). Design highlights include an expander-based process using our proprietary integrally geared machines. Available in five frame sizes, LICOM supports liquefaction capacities ranging from 100 to 1,650 tpd in a single train.
Similar to LIMUM, LICOM is designed for best-in-class efficiency, easy permitting, simple operation and standardization. Our small- to mid-scale LNG plant service extends from prefabricated units and skids all the way to full EPC responsibility for your project.
World-scale LNG Plants
Looking beyond mid-scale plants, we also have the know-how and experience to individually design and build highly efficient, world-scale LNG assets. Our technology portfolio ranges in capacity from a few million tons per annum (tpa) to over 10 million tpa, including builds in some of the world's most challenging climates. Our patented MFC® (Mixed Fluid Cascade) process family includes processes with two or three refrigeration cycles. For each of these base topologies, we offer designs with propane (C3H8) pre-cooling (for warm climates) and mixed refrigerant (MR) pre-cooling (for cold climates and space-constrained applications such as floating LNG operations).
Nitrogen Rejection Units (NRUs)
We offer a variety of NRUs for the safe and economical reduction of the nitrogen content in your natural gas stream to pipeline specifications (typically 3-4 percent) or LNG storage specifications (1 percent). Our technology portfolio of NRUs for natural gas includes single-column, single partitioned column and double-column processes as well as double-column processes with an enrichment step. We design customized configurations tailored to the individual composition of your gas. Modular plant concepts bundle the process module, coldbox and pump modules for time, cost and quality gains. If the gas composition lends itself to helium recovery, we can combine nitrogen rejection with helium recovery. Like all of our natural gas products and solutions, here also you can rely on our experts for full lifecycle support, extending from process consulting to turnkey plant handover and after-sales services.
Helium Recovery and Liquefaction
Our exceptionally broad offering for the natural gas market includes tailored solutions for the recovery and liquefaction of helium if this rare gas is present in your natural gas stream. We combine cryogenic and pressure swing adsorption (PSA) process steps to recover helium so you can use or monetize this highly valuable resource. Covering every step in the helium value chain from recovery through purification to liquefaction and storage, we offer complete plants on a turnkey, lump-sum basis. Depending on your gas composition, it may make sense to combine helium recovery with a nitrogen rejection unit (NRU).
Natural Gas Liquids Recovery Plants
We offer a wide range of gas processing plants to extract and fractionate your natural gas constituent components - including natural gas liquids (NGL), liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), condensate and pure components (methane, ethane, propane and butane). Our offering scales from standardized, pre-engineered, modular solutions to customized builds to suit all capacity requirements. Covering the full project lifecycle from equipment-only to turnkey deliveries, our experts bundle the technologies you need to create the perfect fit for your business priorities - whether that be high recovery, high throughput, turndown flexibility, variable gas compositions or cost efficiency. Regardless of your project boundary conditions, our NGL recovery plants will help you maximize the value of your gas streams.