In transporting gas from the production field to the end user, the demand fluctuates throughout the day, known as “diurnal swing”. The production field exports gas at a steady rate, but it is used variably throughout the day by customers (e.g. less during the night). Some of this swing capacity can be built into the production facilities and some can be provided by the national transmission system (all at a price of course).

Swing can be achieved by throttling the flowrate at a pressure reduction platform and thus using the flowlines from the field as storage. This is known as packing where rates into the flowlines exceed withdrawal rates, and then at times of high demand the pressure is allowed to fall which is known as drafting where rates into the pipeline are less than withdrawal

In other countries (besides Israel) gas is usually stored when demand is low in order to compensate for this, so that it can be used when demand is high.