LNG

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.

Woodside Petroleum has joined to new politicised trend for energy companies to make political investment decisions after several years of intimidation by banks and environmental activists on climate change by shutting down a natural gas project in Myanmar citing reasons of human rights.

US major Chevron Corp. and French major TotalEnergies will both withdraw from Myanmar citing worsening human rights conditions, though the national energy company of Thailand will remain for reasons of energy security and to protect the regional power needs and jobs of ordinary people.

The International Energy Agency, the Paris-based body trying to forge more global influence on energy markets and climate-change clamp-downs, said factors behind increases in natural gas and electricity prices were due to a combination of factors including lower LNG production, while issuing a fawning report about China’s efforts to lower carbon-dioxide (CO2) emissions.

China Gas Holdings, one of the leading non-state controlled companies in the Chinese city-gas and LNG sectors, has accepted full responsibility for the June 2021 explosion in the northeast province of Hubei Province that killed 25 people and left 27 others with serious injuries.

China said its natural gas production last month increased by 7 percent from the same month a year ago as its LNG and pipeline gas import needs also rose.

PetroChina, the Chinese oil and gas major listed in Hong Kong and with LNG stakes in Canada and Mozambique, reported an 8.4 percent rise in first-quarter revenues and a return to profits after losses in the same three months of 2020, as it also completed the hand-over of control of the Dalian LNG terminal to the new state-owned energy infrastructure company.

China Gas Holdings, one of the leading non-state controlled companies in the Chinese sector involved in city-gas and LNG, has been included in the Hang Seng Shanghai-Shenzhen-Hong Kong 300 Index for growing corporations as it pledged to replace more coal with gas in Northern China.

March 23 (LNGJ) - Chinese January-February  domestic natural gas production rose 8 percent to 31.4 billion cubic metres with an average daily output of 520 million cubic metres, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics. Imports of pipeline natural gas and LNG together reached 17.80 million tonnes compared with 17.36MT in Jan-Feb 2019, up 2.6 percent year on year. Domestic crude oil output rose 3.7 percent year on year to 32MT from January to February, while imports increased 5.2 percent from a year earlier to 86.09MT. Some 99.19MT of crude oil was processed during the two months, down 3.8 percent from January-February 2019.

China National Offshore Oil Corp., the owner of nine Chinese LNG import terminals and multiple oil and gas stakes, has outlined its business strategy and development plan for 2020 with 10 new projects scheduled to come on stream.