By Xiao Wan (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-03-03 13:35

Natural gas boom

As a clean energy, natural gas is increasingly desirable and its use, especially liquefied natural gas (LNG), is set to become a more freely traded worldwide commodity, reshaping the global market's traditional pricing and contracting practices, according to Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA).

Global natural gas liquefaction capacity will increase about 30 percent in the next two years to 341 billion cu m from today's 262 billion cu m. About half the investment in the sector is in Ras Laffan in Qatar, with Russia, Yemen, Australia and Indonesia also adding significant capacity, says CERA.

China plans to boost its natural gas production by 50 percent to 90 billion cu m before 2010 when the resource will meet 5.3 percent of the nation's total energy needs, Yang Zhiyi, deputy general manager of Sinopec Natural Gas Co Ltd tells China Business Weekly.

The country's natural gas demand is projected to reach 140 billion cu m in 2010, with about 20 billion cu m imported, he says.

China's production of natural gas rose 23.1 percent in 2007 to 69.31 billion cu m, according to the China Petroleum and Chemical Industry Association.

CNPC's listed arm PetroChina produced 44 billion cu m of natural gas in 2006, an increase of 20 percent, mostly from gasfields in Sichuan, Tarim in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, Changqing field in Shaanxi and Inner Mongolia and its Qinghai gasfield.

The natural gas output of two other oil giants, Sinopec and CNOOC, has also grown. In 2006 their production was 7.3 billion cu m and 6 billion cu m respectively.

Sinopec's Puguang gasfield in Sichuan is the company's biggest discovery in recent years, while CNOOC's LNG terminal in South China's Guangdong province is the first in China.

Natural gas still accounts for a small part of China's total energy consumption, about 3.5 percent of the total, compared to 20 percent in developed countries.

China should adopt a more flexible mechanism for pricing to ensure healthier profits for the industry, says Tang with CNPC. "The pricing mechanism for natural gas in China is subject to further reform so that it can match its international counterparts."

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