<P> Natural gas is a naturally occurring hydrocarbon gas mixture consisting primarily of methane, but commonly including varying amounts of other higher alkanes, and sometimes a small percentage of carbon dioxide, nitrogen, hydrogen sulfide, or helium . It is formed when layers of decomposing plant and animal matter are exposed to intense heat and pressure under the surface of the Earth over millions of years . The energy that the plants originally obtained from the sun is stored in the form of chemical bonds in the gas . </P> <P> Natural gas is a fossil fuel used as a source of energy for heating, cooking, and electricity generation . It is also used as a fuel for vehicles and as a chemical feedstock in the manufacture of plastics and other commercially important organic chemicals . Fossil fuel based natural gas is a non-renewable resource . </P> <P> Natural gas is found in deep underground rock formations or associated with other hydrocarbon reservoirs in coal beds and as methane clathrates . Petroleum is another resource and fossil fuel found in close proximity to and with natural gas . Most natural gas was created over time by two mechanisms: biogenic and thermogenic . Biogenic gas is created by methanogenic organisms in marshes, bogs, landfills, and shallow sediments . Deeper in the earth, at greater temperature and pressure, thermogenic gas is created from buried organic material . </P> <P> In petroleum production gas is often burnt as flare gas . The World Bank estimates that over 150 cubic kilometers of natural gas are flared or vented annually . Before natural gas can be used as a fuel, most, but not all, must be processed to remove impurities, including water, to meet the specifications of marketable natural gas . The by - products of this processing include: ethane, propane, butanes, pentanes, and higher molecular weight hydrocarbons, hydrogen sulfide (which may be converted into pure sulfur), carbon dioxide, water vapor, and sometimes helium and nitrogen . </P>

Deep underground deposits of natural gas formed from
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