Gas pipelines and city gas: Efficiency and losses
Compressor fuel, leaky mains and why methane matters most
What this tab covers How much energy is lost while it moves and while it waits in storage or transit, and how much energy the transport itself consumes, in per cent.Pipelines lose little gas by volume but use a few per cent of it to power their own compressors. The bigger concern is leaked methane, which matters far more for the climate than for the energy balance.
Chart: Efficiency ranges
Used to drive transportLosses by measure
| Measure | Range | Type | What is measured |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pipeline and distribution use, United States | 3.9%4 | Used to drive transport | Gas burned by pipeline and distribution systems (mainly compressor fuel) as a share of total US gas consumption in 2024: 1.28 of 33.06 trillion cubic feet (calculated) |
| Compressor fuel per 1,000 km, long-distance pipeline | 2.2 to 3%21 | Used to drive transport | Gas burned in compressors per 1,000 km as a share of energy carried; life-cycle inventory values used in a 2023 study for Germany (calculated from 2.2 to 3.0 x 10^-5 MJ per MJ per km) |
| Methane from natural gas operations, world | 36 Mt CH4 per year7 | Lost in transit | IEA estimate for 2025, all gas supply chain stages, upstream to distribution |
| Leakage from US distribution mains | 0.25 to 1.24 Tg CH4 per year8 | Lost in transit | Measurement-based national estimate (central value about 0.7), about five times the EPA inventory figure for mains |
Holding periods and inventory
| Measure | Value |
|---|---|
| Time in transit | At 10 to 20 mph, gas takes roughly 1.3 to 2.6 days to travel 1,000 km (calculated)2 |
| Line pack | Gas held in the pipes is drawn down and refilled every day; in Great Britain the within-day swing exceeded 377 GWh on half of winter days (2019 analysis). It is held, not lost20 |
Almost all the energy cost of a pipeline is compressor fuel. In the United States, gas burned by pipelines and distribution systems was about 3.9% of national consumption in 2024 (calculated from EIA data). Life-cycle inventories put long-distance compressor fuel at about 2 to 3% of the gas per 1,000 km, far below the energy needed to liquefy gas for shipping.
Leaks matter more for the climate than for the energy balance, because methane traps far more heat than carbon dioxide in its first decades. Field studies keep finding more than inventories: transmission leaks surveyed in Baltimore and Pittsburgh averaged 172 g of methane per hour against an EPA estimate of 44, and a national study of city mains found about five times the official figure.
Sources
- What is a Natural Gas Compressor Station? INGAA, 2023
- Natural Gas Annual, Table 1: Summary statistics for natural gas in the United States, 2020-2024 US EIA, 2025
- Global Methane Tracker 2026: Key findings IEA, 2026
- A National Estimate of Methane Leakage from Pipeline Mains in Natural Gas Local Distribution Systems (Weller, Hamburg and von Fischer), Environmental Science and Technology 54, 8958-8967 American Chemical Society, 2020
- Flexibility in Great Britain's gas networks: analysis of linepack UK Energy Research Centre, 2019
- Analysis of the greenhouse gas intensities of LNG imports to Germany (Munter and Liebich), final report ifeu for Wissenschaftsplattform Klimaschutz, 2023