LNG

China LNG Group Ltd., a Hong Kong-based company with assets along the value chain in mainland China, has formally changed its name to China HK Power Smart Energy Group Ltd to reflect better the company’s business plans and demonstrate its commitment to future development.

Air Products, the leading liquefied natural equipment-maker and industrial gases company, said it was chosen to supply process technology and equipment to an electric-driven LNG liquefaction plant in China, its second infrastructure order in a week after the Port Arthur project award in Texas.

Deltamarin has signed an agreement with China Merchants Industry (Jiangsu) Co., Ltd. for the design and engineering of a new series of Höegh Autoliners Aurora-class Pure Car and Truck Carriers (PCTCs) with LNG fuel capability.

China is expanding the liquefied natural gas fuel bunkering market in competition with other Asian fuelling ports like Singapore and has just started commercial operations at the Chinese port of Macun in Hainan where LNG is being offered to shipping traffic from quayside trucks.

Elixir Energy, a small Australian exploration and production company, has signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding to help develop a small-scale LNG plant in land-locked Mongolia, the East Asian nation bordered by Russia and China.

SK E&S, a leading South Korean LNG operator and utility company, has sold its entire stake in a Chinese private natural gas company to improve its own finances amid the demand and prices drop in the energy industry.

The energy unit of SK Group said it sold all of its remaining 10.25 percent stake, amounting to 535 million shares, in China Gas Holdings through a block deal on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, according to a regulatory filing.

The sale price was 1.80 trillion South Korean won (US$1.47 billion).

China Gas is the largest independent Chinese city-gas distributor and owner of over 550 filling stations for gas-powered vehicles.

The Chinese company has been in a partnership with Kunlun Energy, a subsidiary of LNG importer PetroChina, to connect households and businesses to city gas in China’s northeast provinces.

SK E&S said the move to sell the Chinese shares was aimed at improving its own financial structure as it also increases its energy investments in Australia.

It had previously sold a 3.3 percent stake in China Gas in September 2019 for 786.8 billion won. Currently, only its subsidiaries own stakes in CGH, totaling 1.45 percent.

The company is a unit of the SK Group, the third-largest conglomerate in South Korea, and a competitor to Korea Gas Corp, the largest LNG importer.

SK E&S, which has booked volumes from Freeport LNG in Texas, also has capacity at two South Korean import terminals, the Boryeong and Kwangyang facilities.

It is additionally a shareholder in the Barossa natural gas field development in Australia’s Northern Territory that will provide feed-gas for the Darwin LNG export plant at Wickham Point.

The shareholdings for that venture and Darwin LNG have changed after ConocoPhillips agreed to sell its Northern Australian assets to Adelaide-based energy and LNG player Santos.

Santos has signed agreement to sell a 25 percent interest in Darwin LNG to SK E&S.

It also sold a 12.5 percent interest in the Barossa filed development to the largest Japanese LNG importer, JERA Co. Inc.

The Chinese National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) has reformed the wholesale pricing mechanism of natural gas and will start to unify prices from June 10 for residential and industrial users as domestic demand grows along with LNG and pipeline imports.

Chinese company CIMC Enric, a maker of ISO containers that carried the first cargo of Canadian LNG from Canada to China, said it signed an agreement to sell 275 of the containers to China LNG Group and at least 800 more before the end of the year.

Hubei Energy Group of China plans to invest in liquefied natural gas infrastructure on the Yangtze River and has signed an accord with the city of Zhejiang to encourage fuel use by river traffic in the next three to five years.

Chungchan Sinoenergy Corp., the Chinese clean fuel distribution and infrastructure developer, said it signed a framework agreement to invest up to US$50 million for 30 percent equity in a liquefied natural gas export project at Sarita Bay in the Canadian province of British Columbia owned by Steelhead LNG.