China Domestic Gas Prices May Rise

China’s private oil companies are of the view that country’s natural gas prices will inevitable rise as current prices are too low compared with the prices abroad, Want China Times said.

The difference in the retail price between domestic and imported natural gas has created rising losses for local producers, and this is because China has been relying too heavily on imported natural gas, Want China Times quoted Wang Wang, an analyst at commodity researching company SCI, as saying, who estimated China's dependence ratio will rise to 50% in 2020 from the current level of 28.9%.

Various cities in China have already raised prices and despite China's National Development and Reform Commission clarifying that the price of natural gas in the country will not be raised in April, cities like Changchun and Suzhou are set lift prices anyway, the news report said.

Natural gas consumption will double to account for 8% of China's total energy consumption by the end of the current five-year plan at the end of 2015, according to the proposal of the National Energy Administration.