Natural gas in China

With China’s natural gas consumption set to almost treble within the next decade, the Asian giant will begin to draw resources from all available areas to keep up with demand. This has been reported by Global Data.

Natural gas

According to research recently carried out by the company, China’s natural gas consumption was 131.7 billion m³ in 2011. This is already a huge increase from the 2000 figure of 24.5 billion m³. Yet, consumption levels are predicted to soar even higher by 2020 to reach 375 billion m³, thanks to the country’s desire to increase the share of natural gas in its energy mix.

China does have substantial natural gas reserves of its own, however demand has already outstripped production, making imports essential. In 2011 China consumed 131.7 billion m3 of natural gas but only produced 100.9 billion m³. The disparity is only expected to grow in the future.

LNG

The importing of LNG is also to be an important strategy to fulfil China’s natural gas needs in the near future. In 1998, the country approved the first LNG project in the country. The project was located in the Guangdong province and was commissioned to meet the energy shortages being experienced in the country’s south eastern coastal area.

By the end of last year, five LNG termainls were in operation in China with a total regasification capacity of approximately 1 trillion ft³. It is expected that this capacity will increase to 2.8 trillion ft³ by 2016 due to the construction of 11 more terminals.

Adapted from press release by Claira Lloyd.

Read the article online at: https://www.hydrocarbonengineering.com/gas-processing/05072012/chinese_gas_demand/