Name

NW European Gas Atlas

Oil and gas has been produced from the Northwest European onshore and offshore areas for several decades, but little has been done on an international basis so far to compare gas composition from different gas fields, or to correlate gas composition with provenance. Natural gas consisting predominantly of methane with varying amounts of the higher homologues ethane, propane, butane, etc., is sometimes also combined with undesirable non-combustibles and contaminants such as nitrogen, carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulphide.

This report deals with the results of this inventory study who’s main objectives were:

• to give a comprehensive overview of the composition and areal distribution of the natural gases in the Northwest European gasfields.
• to generate maps, displaying the calorific values of the hydrocarbon gases present;
• to give an overview of the amounts and areal distribution of the non-combustibles and contaminants (mainly CO2, and N2) in the natural gases.
• to characterise the origin of the gases by means of studying various isotope ratios