Natural gas is a mixture of hydrocarbons, a subject of a religious cult and academic disputes, as well as an essential resource. It is invisible and odorless. The amount of natural gas in Russia is more than wherever in the world.

What is the composition of natural gas?
The base of natural gas is methane (CH4), the simplest hydrocarbon (organic compound consisting of carbon and hydrogen atoms). Normally, it also includes heavier hydrocarbons – methane homologs – such as ethane (C2H6), propane (C3H8), butane (C4H10), and some nonhydrocarbon admixtures.

Natural gas can exist in the form of gas fields in formations of some rocks, as gas caps (above crude oil), and in dissolved or crystalline forms.

Gas odor
It is worth mentioning that none of the above-named gases has color or odor. Typical unpleasant smell, which almost everybody knows from everyday life, is added to gas deliberately and is called “odorization”. Sulfur compounds are usually used as odorants, i.e. substances with unpleasant smells. Humans can smell one of the most common odorants – ethanethiol – even if one part of this substance is dissolved in 50 million parts of air. Gas leaks can be easily identified exactly due to the odorization.