A systematic review for sustainability of global liquified natural gas industry: A 10-year update

Abstract

This paper presents a comprehensive review and 10-years update of the sustainability research related to Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) worldwide for the period between 2010 and 2020. Using the Scopus database, 467 articles, including journals, conference papers, and many other reports, were initially collected and screened. The filtered studies were categorized based on various factors such as author, year of publication, title, journal, method, country studied, analyzed system, the scope of the analysis, and period. It was found that only 168 (36% of the whole) studies have investigated the LNG sector's sustainability impacts with a detailed analysis. The collected literature was studied and categorized based on a proposed criterion. The findings showed that approximately 7 out of 46 countries performed such a massive number of LNG studies with a focus on LNG industries and sustainability. Moreover, it is observed that sustainability analysis research in LNG production concentrates mainly on the national level with 48% and the global level studies were found to be around 40% of total studies. The review also showed that there is no holistic life cycle environmental, economic, and social impact assessment for the LNG industry considering the entire value chain activities from gas extraction/processing to final consumption. This review finally discussed the lessons learned from the literature reviewed and industry best practices and several practical industry-specific policies are presented to enhance the long-term sustainability of LNG in support of sustainable development globally.

Keywords

• Liquified natural gas
• Life cycle assessment
• Sustainability assessment
• Carbon footprint
• Energy sector
• Environmental footprint