Business & Finance: Liquid Gas

Natural gas, taken from oil or gas-wells, is ordinarily distributed by pipelines, some 57,000 miles of which are in current operation in the U, S. On the Pacific Coast last week Standard Oil Co. of California announced an additional method of natural gas distribution. By this project gas will be liquefied and shipped in tank cars to local plants, where it will be carburated. Thus communities to which pipe lines do not at present extend will none the less be prospects for natural gas service. The liquefying process is not aimed, however, at superseding pipe lines, but rather as an accessory form of distribution. Liquid natural gas will be distributed by Natural Gas Corporations of California, Oregon and Washington, all subsidiaries of Pacific Public Service Co. which is in turn a subsidiary of Standard of California. The development of liquid distribution of natural gas will, of course, bring natural gas to many communities too small or too isolated for efficient pipe-line service and natural gas men ultimately visualize a far-reaching system of pipe trunk-lines linked up with local distribution of the gas in its liquid form.