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Transcripción del abstract original del autor: The economics of natural gas transport depends greatly on the annual volumes and transport distances. Pipelines are readily used for distances less than 1000 km and large volumes, while LNG (liquefied natural gas) technology is used for much larger distances. Other non-pipeline technologies are considered suitable for other annual volumes and transport distances. Natural gas hydrate (NGH) technology represents a new non-pipeline technology that is suitable for the transport of small-tomedium annual volumes of natural gas over moderate distances. Surveys of natural gas resources world-wide indicate that about 80% of new discoveries will be smaller than the minimum required to make LNG transport economical (mature technology). Hence the great interest in NGH and similar new technologies. Several groups are developing NGH technology world-wide, including NTNU and Aker Kvaerner Technology in Norway. NGH technology is lower in cost than LNG technology, based on mid-1995 and mid-2002 cost studies for large-scale natural gas chains (NGH will be even more competitive for small-to-medium sized chains). When NGH technology matures its costs are expected to decrease and be even more favourable compared to LNG technology.