natural gas vs. fuel oil?
natural gas vs. fuel oil?
(OP)
I am at the moment trying to decide whether we should use natural gas or fuel oil for our furnaces.
The thing is, that here in Uruguay, the price of natural gas doubles that of fuel oil, for the same amount of calories (theoretical). nevertheless, many copmanies have switched to natural gas, and many people think it is much better. So I think there are some costs, benefits, etc that I am not considering.
Can anyone please tell me which costs or inefficiencies, or advantages/disadvantages should I consider?
Thanks
Pablo
The thing is, that here in Uruguay, the price of natural gas doubles that of fuel oil, for the same amount of calories (theoretical). nevertheless, many copmanies have switched to natural gas, and many people think it is much better. So I think there are some costs, benefits, etc that I am not considering.
Can anyone please tell me which costs or inefficiencies, or advantages/disadvantages should I consider?
Thanks
Pablo





RE: natural gas vs. fuel oil?
RE: natural gas vs. fuel oil?
RE: natural gas vs. fuel oil?
i presume you are only looking @ purchase cost. if that be the case, then the cost of using fuel only will increase bcos of cost of storage. for natural gas you need no storage facility as the gas will flow to You direct from your supplier.
secondly, environmental impact assessment for both, shows that natural gas is more environmentally friendly. therefore,in situations where environmental laws are seriuos,the choice of natural gas is a plus.As you might need to treat fuel oil effluent before release to environment.
Also, there is brighter future for NG bcos of the abundance and the tendency for lower purchase cost is obvious.
i hope i made some points.
Cheers
RE: natural gas vs. fuel oil?
RE: natural gas vs. fuel oil?
RE: natural gas vs. fuel oil?
RE: natural gas vs. fuel oil?
Clean, trouble-free operation is worth a fair premium on the fuel price. You have to decide for yourself what is a fair premium, though!
RE: natural gas vs. fuel oil?
RE: natural gas vs. fuel oil?
At that moment , oil was much cheaper that NG. However , the engineering manager obtained from the management that both fuels could and should be used , given that the new boiler room would be operating over a very long period (30 years or more) and rices for both fuels would probably fluctuate in the longer term.
We bought two boiler furnaces with each a dual Oil/Gas burner. For the oil burner part , we had to install an outside tank of 20 000 liter , enclosed against rainfall and contained against leak/spills during filling. The containment was linked to the water treatment plant system by a coal filter for absorption of organic leaks. The tank had HL/LL warning systems + pumps for oil feeding to the oil burners. For the gas feeding , we only had to instal a new pipe of dia. 160mm on the incoming city feeding line , connected with the 2 new boiler installations.
We runned most of the summer time on oil , because it was much cheaper , and switched to gas during winter time , when oil prices where higher due to increased demand. I heard that they now run continuously on NG , because it is cheaper and require less maintenance of the furnace.
RE: natural gas vs. fuel oil?
You have been extremely helpful!
bye
RE: natural gas vs. fuel oil?
fuel oil has much higher sulphur content. The environmental permit will usually limit the amount of SO2 emmitted per year. Also, the suphur will cause corrosion of the exhaust surfaces and casing due to condensation of sulphuric acid.