Natural Gas·it heats our water, cooks our food and warms our homes. It fuels our factories, powers some of our transportation and even generates the electricity that we use every day. We depend on it so much that we take it for granted.
Other than an occasional pipeline marker along a roadway, the evidence of the natural gas industry is largely unseen. A pipeline company's activities in operating a natural gas pipeline are focused on two primary goals:
1) Ensure reliable, continuous deliveries of natural gas to customers;
2) Maintain public safety and the integrity of the gas pipeline system.
The pipeline transmission system, the “interstate highway” for natural gas, consists of 220,000 miles of high-strength steel pipe 20 inches to 42 inches in diameter. It moves huge amounts of natural gas thousands of miles from producing regions to local natural gas utilities and sometimes directly to large users of natural gas.