Forbes: China's Rising Natural Gas Demand, Pipelines, and LNG

Although the slowest pace since 1990, China’s economy still grew by nearly 7% last year. This economic “slowdown” and sunken energy namely for coal and oil have cut growth in China’s natural gas demand. Yet, gas use in 2015 was still up 4%, and an 18% gain in January YOY should mean better prospects this year.

In 2015, China still consumed 35% more gas than projected in EIA’s International Energy Outlook 2010, so don’t be so quick to accept today’s pessimistic predictions of China’s gas demand in 2020 or beyond.

Emerging and inevitable climate agreements like COP21 and increased emission standards mean even more gas, ushering in the “Age of Gas” IEA has been reporting about and why the “oil giants” are positioning themselves as “gas giants.” China itself will launch a national cap-and-trade scheme in 2017 that favors gas.

Production wise, China has generally been a high-cost producer with no single giant field, particularly a major disadvantage when prices are so low like they are now. Gas resources there are unevenly distributed and often remote from demand centers. MORE