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China's LNG Demand Forecast Raised by 48% on Growth (Update2)
2010-07-26 07:01:19.355 GMT
(Updates with report name in second paragraph.)
By Dinakar Sethuraman
July 26 (Bloomberg) -- China's appetite for liquefied
natural gas may increase 48 percent in 2020 from an earlier
forecast as demand for the cleaner-burning fuel grows, Wood
Mackenzie Consultants Ltd. said.
LNG demand in 2020 may reach 46 million metric tons a year
from a previous estimate of 31 million from end-2009, the
Edinburgh-based energy consultant said in a report titled "Race
for Supply - The Future of China's Gas Market." The nation's
gas demand may rise to 43 billion cubic feet a day (444 billion
cubic meters) in 2030 from 9 billion cubic feet a day last year.
"This strong demand growth will not purely be driven by
gross domestic product," said Gavin Thompson, China gas study
director for Wood Mackenzie in an e-mailed statement today.
"The gas demand story is about displacing oil products, not
coal, in the industrial and residential sectors."
China's second-quarter growth was less than the median 10.5
percent estimate in a Bloomberg News survey of 28 economists
after the government tempered credit expansion, investment
spending and property speculation. The full-year expansion will
be 10 percent, according to the median forecast in a Bloomberg
News survey of 20 economists on July 15.
The world's biggest energy user boosted LNG purchases in
June by 58 percent from a year earlier to 741,732 tons,
according to customs data from China. Purchases of the fuel
reached a record 842,697 tons in April.
Unconventional Sources
Production of unconventional gas, lodged in rocks and
coalfields, may exceed 11 billion cubic feet a day in China by
2030, accounting for more than a quarter of total gas supply,
Thompson said.
Gas deposits found in unconventional and hard-to-extract
sources may account for as much as 75 percent of China's total
reserves of 3,687 trillion cubic feet based on 2020 demand,
adequate to supply the world's second-largest energy user for a
century, Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. said in November. The
country currently has 80 trillion cubic feet of proven
conventional gas reserves, representing 10 years of total supply,
it said.
"Shale gas is the major growth story in China Gas," Wood
Mackenzie's Thomson said. "However, unconventional gas
resources will take a significant time to develop and therefore
meeting its gas demand will require China to import significant
additional volumes of LNG and piped gas, particularly up to
2020."
Chevron Corp.'s Gorgon and Wheatstone LNG projects, BG
Group Plc's and Santos Ltd.'s coal-seam-gas ventures in
Queensland, Woodside Petroleum Ltd.'s Pluto project and Inpex
Corp.'s Ichthys are among those developing supplies of the fuel.
Chevron said on its website that the proposed Wheatstone venture
in Western Australia may produce 25 million tons of LNG a year,
almost sufficient to feed South Korea, the world's biggest LNG
user after Japan.
For Related News and Information:
Top energy stories: ETOP <GO>
Top stories on China: TOP CHINA <GO>
China Energy Data: ENST CHINA <GO>
--Editors: Jane Lee, Ryan Woo.
To contact the reporter on this story:
Dinakar Sethuraman in Singapore at +65-6212-1590 or
dinakar@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Clyde Russell at +65-6311-2423 or
crussell7@bloomberg.net
