S&P Global Platts: China would be dependent on imported gas and LNG in coming years
PetroChina Company Limited, CNPC-run major oil and gas producer and distributor in China, plans to increase the domestic natural gas production. However, even this rates lags behind the actual demand for this environment friendly fossil fuel, thus indicating that the country will remain dependent on imported gas and LNG in the foreseeable future. "Domestic oil and gas resources are not good enough for significant production increases," said the company's vice chairman Zhang Jianhua, according to the portal of economic market and market information S&P Global Platts. PetroChina aims to annually grow its gas output by about 4-5% over the next five years. According to company’s data, China's natural gas consumption lifted up 17.5% year on year basis in H1 2018 exceeding 134 billion cu m. The same time the total gas import volumes surged by 8.92 billion cu m from H1 2017 to 35.6 billion cu m. The Central Asian gas shares 24 billion cu m in import structure. To ensure supplies in the coming winter, which is the peak consumption season in China, PetroChina had signed contracts with domestic buyers to supply 84 billion cu m of gas, while PetroChina's domestic gas production was at 46.71 billion cu m. So, as clear from the statement of Vice president Ling Xiao, commitments will be fulfilled through a combination of domestic output and imports. According to earlier reports, appeared in Kazakhstani media, the total volume of Central Asian gas supplies will 51.3 billion cubic meters this year with the prevailing share of gas from Turkmenistan.
