China's natural gas imports by pipelines as well as LNG increased for May and during the first five months of 2024 along with domestic natural gas production.
A total of 54.28 million tonnes of natural gas was imported in the first five months of 2024, up 17.4 percent versus the previous year, according to data published by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) in China.
Chinese energy majors also produced 103.3 billion cubic metres of natural gas in the January-to-May period, up 5.2 percent from a year earlier.
In May alone, the natural gas output expanded 6.3 percent year-over-year to 20.3 Bcm.
LNG and crude
China's LNG imports increased slightly in May, according to other data from the Chinese General Administration of Customs.
China imported 6.57 million tonnes of LNG last month, an increase of 2.5 percent from the 6.41MT received in May 2023.
Imports of LNG to the Chinese network of 25 regasification terminals in April 2024 had soared by 31.5 percent to 6.22MT compared with 4.77MT in April 2023.
In the first five months of 2024, China's total LNG imports reached 32.42MT, up about 17.7 percent compared with the 27.54MT received in January-to-May 2023.
The Chinese NBS data additionally showed that China's crude oil production in May rose by 0.6 percent from a year earlier to 18.15 million tons, or about 4.27 million barrels per day.
From January to May, output grew 1.8 percent on the year to 89.1MT, or 4.28 million bpd.
The NBS data added that China’s oil refinery output slipped by 1.8 percent from the previous year because of maintenance turnarounds and falling profit margins
Refiners undertook planned maintenance overhauls and processing margins were pressured by rising crude costs.
The major refiners such as Sinopec and PetroChina processed 60.52MT of crude oil in May, the equivalent to 14.25 million bpd.
Throughput
Refinery throughput for January to May was up just 0.3 percent from a year earlier at 301.77 MT, or 14.49 million bpd, the data showed.
This was down from 14.3 million bpd in April and 14.6 million bpd in May 2023.
The data showed that refining numbers were lower than a year earlier, reflecting higher crude costs and lagging domestic fuel prices, despite a brief spike in fuel demand during a Chinese holiday period in the first week of May for travel by car and the use of gasoline
Jet fuel use from refining was also lower with the number of domestic flights declining by 1.79 percent year-over-year in May to 778,210 flights but were still up 8.26 percent from pre-pandemic levels in 2019.
International flights out of China roughly doubled from May 2023 to 58,878, though they remained 28.74 percent lower than in the pre-Covid 19 period of May 2019.
