NATURAL GAS. 
19 
STORAGE OF NATURAL GAS. 
Storage facilities for natural gas are not commercially feasible in 
the field nor at the delivering end of the transmission line, except the 
very limited use of existing gas holders in distributing plants. The 
large variation in service demands must therefore be met by the wells 
and reserve acreage. That is, the entire field operations must be sub- 
ordinated to the peculiar service demands made on the natural gas 
company. An interesting contrast with these stringent operating 
conditions is the large storage equipment in acres of tank farms that 
may be used to equalize the load in the oil industry. 
LIMITS OF GEOLOGY. 
While earth structure is the essential element in the accumula- 
tion of large quantities of natural gas or oil, geological science is a 
directional indicator and hazard reducer only, and not a guarantor 
of commercial results. 
Geology answers that by careful attention to her precepts, much of the waste 
that characterized the first three decades of the search for petroleum can be 
avoided, but that it is beyond her powers to foretell absolutely as to whether 
any particular boring will yield either oil or gas in commercial quantity. The 
careful geologist can eliminate many of the factors of uncertainty, and thus 
limit the search to regions having a peculiar geological structure where experi- 
ence has shown that the occurrence of oil and gas is most probable, but further 
than this geology can not go, and no skillful geologist has ever claimed other- 
wise. 1 
LIMITS OF UNDERGROUND RESERVOIRS. 
There is absolutely nothing fixed from the surface, and while sur- 
face conditions may be indicative, the question of underground loca- 
tion can be established by the drill alone. Even the presence of gas 
sand is not necessarily «an indication of the presence of gas, as many 
dry holes show the full sand formation, without any gas in the sand. 
The dry holes shown in the map of the Triple State Field on plate 7 
indicate a typical field situation, emphasizing the inability to deter- 
mine underground limits except by drilling a hole. 
OPEN OR NATURAL FLOW. 
The courts have used the term “ natural flow ” synonomously for 
the engineering term “open flow,” both, however, meaning exactly 
the same thing. 
The term. “ natural flow ” necessarily means tbe entire volume of gas tliat will 
issue from the mouth of a gas well when retarded only by the atmospheric 
pressure. (Appellate Court of Indiana, 66 N. E., p. 782. Richmond Natural 
Gas Co. versus Enterprise Natural Gas Co.) 
1 1. C. White, West Virginia, Geological Survey, vol. 1, p. 158. 
