China to Have 68 LNG Terminals in Five Years
China is likely to have 68 LNG receiving terminals in the next five years, more than three times the current number, Guo Zonghua, president of leading state-owned think-tank Shaanxi Gas Design Institute said at an event November 30.
He said that at present, there are 20 LNG receiving stations in China, with a further 20 are under various stages of construction. There are 28 projects that have been proposed. So, China will probably have 68 LNG receiving stations in the next five years, he said. The forecast is included in a report published December 5 by state-owned CNPC on its information website.
China’s annual LNG supply in the next five years will equal its domestic gas production and piped gas imports combined, he added. In the next five years, the annual supply of LNG in China is expected to increase to 462.2bn m3/yr (342mn mt/yr), he said.
China’s gas demand has seen very sharp rise owing to government’s aggressive coal-to-gas switching policy. Strong demand saw spike in LNG imports in 2017 when China imported a record 38.13mn mt of LNG. Robust LNG imports have continued in 2018 as well and China broke last year's demand during the first ten months of 2018 itself when it imported 41.58mn mt of LNG.
China also imported gas via two pipelines: China-Myanmar and Central Asia Pipeline. The current capacity of China-Myanmar pipeline is 12bn m3/yr while Central Asia-China pipeline has a capacity to carry 90bn m3/yr of gas. Next year, China will start receiving Russian gas via the Power of Siberia pipeline.
Although strong demand has led to higher domestic gas production, the output still remains much below demand. The country produced 129.53bn m3 of natural gas during the first 10 months of 2018, up 6.3% year-on-year, according to the latest government data while apparent consumption rose by 18%, to 224.8bn m3.