Natural Gas Pipeline and Consumption – US versus EU

Table 1 below shows some natural gas pipeline data for the northeast (NE) region of the United States (US), along with demographic and geographic data.  Table 2 shows such data for the European Union (EU).  The US natural gas data was obtained from the US Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) website.  Click here to go an EIA page that provides natural gas pipeline mileage data and click here to go to an EIA site from which natural gas consumption by state data can be found.

The EU natural gas pipeline and consumption data were obtained from data provided by Eurogas, an association representing the European natural gas industry.  Click here and here for data on EU natural gas pipeline length and on EU natural gas consumption data.

What I think makes this data useful in comparing natural gas usage between the US’s NE region (those states in Table 1) and the EU is the closeness of the population densities for each area (309 people per square mile for the NE region; 304 for the EU).  This being the case, I assume some value in natural gas pipeline delivery and consumption comparisons between the two areas.

The Tables suggest to me that natural gas pipeline delivery and consumption in the US NE region is much different than in the EU, even though the population densities are very close.  Natural gas consumption per person in the NE region is much greater than in the EU (74,700 cubic feet per person versus 29,632 cubic feet per person).

Also interesting is that far less pipeline appears to be used in the NE region; even as the amount of per person gas consumption is much higher.  For example, in the NE region 0.10 miles of pipeline per square mile is present versus 0.80 miles per square mile in the EU.  Many more persons per pipeline mile are in the NE region (3,132) than in the EU (382).  This pipeline difference would seem to suggest that pipeline use in the NE region is more efficient and productive than in the EU.

Table 1 NE region USA	pop. million	area square miles	pop. density person per square mile	miles of natural gas pipeline	natural gas consumpt. billion cu ft	natural gas cu ft used per person	natural gas cu ft used per square mile	miles natural gas pipeline per square mile	persons per mile pipeline
CT	3.60	5,500	655	628	235.9	65,528	42.9 M	0.11	5732
MA	6.70	10,600	632	972	420.2	62,716	39.6 M	0.09	6893
ME	1.30	35,200	37	609	60.7	46,692	1.7 M	0.02	2,135
NH	1.30	9,300	140	291	57.0	43,846	6.1 M	0.03	4,467
NJ	8.90	8,700	1,023	1,520	766.4	86,112	88.1 M	0.17	5,855
NY	19.70	54,600	361	5,018	1,344.9	68,269	24.6 M	0.09	3,926
PA	12.80	46,100	278	8,680	1,200.7	93,805	26.0 M	0.19	1,475
RI	1.10	1,500	733	100	88.7	80,636	59.1 M	0.07	11,000
VT	0.63	9,600	65	71	10.7	17,065	1.1 M	0.01	8,831
region's total	56.03	181,100		17,889	4,185.2
region's amount			309			74,700	23.1 M	0.10	3,132
Table 2	pop. million	area square miles million	pop. density person per square mile	miles of natural gas pipeline million	natural gas consumpt. billion cu ft	natural gas cu ft used per person	natural gas cu ft used per square mile	miles natural gas pipeline per square mile	persons per mile pipeline
EU	508	1.67	304	1.329	15,053	29,632	9 M	0.80	382