Boilers
Steam and hot-water boilers for process heating, humidification and building services.
Industrial fuel
Gas as a process fuel
Factories use natural gas wherever heat is needed: boilers that make steam, furnaces and ovens for drying or curing, and direct-fired equipment in food, textile, brick and ceramic production. Gas is piped to the point of use and burned in controlled burners.
Supply can come from the national gas pipeline, or from compressed gas delivered and stored on site where pipeline capacity is limited or unavailable. In either case the site needs pressure regulation, metering, leak detection and trained operators.
The practical benefits are convenience compared with handling liquid fuels, controllable flame quality, and simpler storage — but the correct setup depends entirely on the process and its heat demand.
Applications
What factories run on gas
Furnaces & ovens
Drying, curing and firing in brick, ceramic, glass and metal work, at controlled temperatures.
Direct-fired equipment
Dryers, roasters and coating lines where a gas flame contacts the product or the process air directly.
Gas engines
Generator sets and combined heat and power units producing electricity and usable waste heat.
Every application is a heating value calculation first. Burner rating, daily running hours and peak demand decide what pipe sizes, regulators and storage a site needs — long before any equipment is chosen.
Supply reality
When the pipeline is not enough
Pressure fluctuations and shortages
Gas supply to industrial consumers can vary with season, national demand and field output. Periods of low pressure or interrupted supply force factories to throttle production, switch fuels at short notice, or run less efficient back-up equipment.
This is the main reason industrial users look at alternatives: delivered CNG storage on site, dual-fuel capability, or additional regulation equipment to keep burners stable while inlet pressure swings.
Options when supply is short
- On-site CNG storage as a buffer that carries critical processes through pressure dips
- Tube-trailer delivery for sites beyond the pipeline or inside shortage-prone zones
- Dual-fuel burners that can switch between gas and liquid fuel
- Demand-side planning — staggering peak loads so several furnaces never start together
Equipment
What an industrial gas supply needs
Four groups of equipment stand between a storage vessel or pipeline and a working burner.
Pressure control
Regulators and safety shut-off valves reduce storage or pipeline pressure to the level the burner requires — usually in two stages, with venting sized for the flow.
Storage & vaporising
For on-site CNG or LPG supply, cylinder bundles feed through vaporisers or regulation trains sized to peak demand, not average demand.
Measurement
Flow meters and pressure gauges record consumption and make it possible to spot leaks, theft and inefficiency early.
Safety systems
Gas detection, ventilation and emergency cut-off valves are part of any well-designed installation, with regular testing of every trip.
Pressure regulation
From storage pressure to burner pressure
Storage pressure and pipeline pressure are far higher than what a burner can accept. Regulation normally happens in stages: a master regulator drops storage pressure to an intermediate level, and a second regulator near the equipment trims it to the burner manufacturer's setting.
- Regulators must be sized for peak flow, or pressure sags exactly when demand is highest
- Safety shut-off valves close on loss of supply pressure or on a gas-detection trip
- Vents must discharge to a safe location — gas lighter than air accumulates at high points
- Filtering upstream of regulators protects seats from debris carried from storage vessels
Metering
Measuring what is burned
Metering serves three purposes on an industrial site: billing reconciliation with the supplier, process control (burners are tuned against known gas quantities), and leak detection — a site that consumes more gas than its processes can explain is leaking somewhere.
- Confirm meter and regulator range match the site's peak flow
- Calibrate or verify meters at the supplier's required interval
- Record pressure alongside flow — a pressure drop at constant demand signals a problem
- Keep service access clear: a meter you cannot read is a meter that is not measuring
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Transportation
Trucking gas to the factory gate
Where the pipeline does not reach — or cannot supply enough — CNG offers a way to move gas by road. Gas is compressed to around 200–250 bar into tube trailers (bundles of long cylinders), trucked to the site, and transferred into on-site storage.
A pressure reducing unit (PRU) at or near the site drops the arrival pressure to a stable distribution level. Because trailers arrive at high pressure and leave empty, the whole chain — unloading bay, grounding, spacing and valve access — is designed around high-pressure handling.
- Unloading only by trained operators, engine off, with exclusion zones in place
- On-site storage sized for the gap between deliveries, plus an emergency margin
- Delivery scheduling that accounts for real travel times and demand peaks
Honest limits
When CNG is not the right substitute
CNG is natural gas by another delivery method — but that does not make it a drop-in answer for every gas user.
Where it fits well
- Existing natural-gas burners — the gas itself is the same, so only the supply train changes
- Buffer storage for pipeline pressure dips, keeping critical furnaces running
- Sites beyond the pipeline with moderate, interruptible heat demand
- Gas engines and gensets, which accept natural gas directly
Where it usually does not
- Equipment specified for LPG. LPG and natural gas have different heating values and air requirements; burners must be converted and re-tuned, not just switched.
- Very large, continuous heat loads. Trucked gas costs more per unit energy than pipeline gas, and delivery logistics may not match a furnace that runs around the clock.
- Processes needing a specific gas atmosphere. Protective atmospheres, inerting or chemical feedstocks are different products with different purity requirements.
- Low-temperature heating that electrifies better. Heat pumps or electric options can be cheaper and cleaner for gentle heat demands.
Rule of thumb. Compare delivered cost per unit of useful heat, required burner modifications, supply reliability and safety risk — for the specific process, not for the factory as a whole. A short assessment with the burner manufacturer's data beats any general rule.
Planning
Before you specify a supply
- Measure the real heat demand: burner rating and daily running hours
- Check available supply pressure and peak flow at the site boundary
- Confirm the burner equipment is approved for the gas being used
- Plan ventilation, detection and shut-off before installation starts
- Schedule inspection and maintenance of regulators and valves
- Agree delivery intervals and an emergency margin if gas is trucked in
Safety is cumulative. Industrial gas incidents rarely come from one dramatic failure — they come from small deviations (a vent blocked, a gauge ignored, a valve serviced late) that line up. A maintenance log and a tested shut-off chain prevent most of them.
Regulatory checks. Installations should meet the requirements of the relevant energy and safety authorities before commissioning, and be re-inspected at the interval they set. Details vary by location and plant size — confirm with the authorities concerned.