Fact check: Shipped liquid gas is more carbon intensive than UK gas

In Parliament an MP said that importing liquefied natural gas (LNG) has net emissions which are up to four times higher than those for North Sea gas.

“I remind the House that, for example, importing liquefied natural gas involves cooling gas to 160 degrees below zero, shipping it thousands of miles from Qatar and regasifying it at a port in this country,” he said.

“The net emissions are up to four times higher than those from North Sea gas.”

Evaluation

This only measures the emissions from the production and transport of liquefied natural gas.

These production and transport emissions are around four times higher than those from domestically produced gas, according to an official report.

However more significant emissions come from burning the gas. If this is taken into account then carbon emissions from LNG are only around 17% higher than those from domestic gas.

The facts

As was said in Parliament, LNG needs to be chilled until it is in liquid form, then put on a ship and transported from the country of origin to the final place where it is to be used.

This is a much more energy-intensive process, so leads to considerably higher emissions.

A report from the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA) found that “the average carbon intensity of imported Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) is almost four times the carbon intensity of UK production”.

But that report only measures emissions from the production and transport of the gas, not from its combustion, which is the main source of emissions from gas.

To find the full difference in emissions between LNG and British gas, one must therefore add the emissions that are produced when the gas is burned by the end user.

The International Energy Agency says that natural gas combustion results in 320 kilograms (kg) of carbon dioxide (CO2) per barrel of oil equivalent (boe).

The NSTA report found that the transport and production emissions for domestic gas was 21 kg of CO2 per boe, and for LNG it was 79 kg.

So the total CO2 emissions for transport, production and combustion of domestic gas would be 341 kg per boe, compared with 399 kg for LNG.

That means that emissions for LNG are 17% higher.

Links

UK Parliament – Business of the House, April 24 2025 (archived)

NSTA – Carbon footprint of UK natural gas imports (archived)

IEA – Emissions from Oil and Gas Operations in Net Zero Transitions (archived)