Dec 05: Chinese wholesale LNG prices hit a record high
8Even so, China’s natural gas consumption in the first nine months of 2017 increased by 17% from a year earlier. In line with the demand expansion, domestic gas production grew by 11% and imports posted an even steeper expansion of 21%. Particularly, LNG imports increased by 35% to 33.3 billion cubic meters, surpassing 31.5 Bcm in pipeline gas imports.
8China may sharply expand gas demand by switching from coal to gas, promoting a gas market reform and developing relevant infrastructure including pipelines and LNG terminals. Depending on shale and other domestic gas resources development, China’s gas demand could expand even more than expected.
8The Chinese report forecasts that China’s LNG imports would expand rapidly from 27 Bcm in 2015 to 60 Bcm in 2020 before growing more slowly to 70 Bcm in 2030 due to assumed domestic shale gas development and increasing pipeline gas imports.
8But all analysts agree that it is very difficult to predict the future demand for gas in China as of the moment.
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