LNG

Sanctioned Arctic LNG 2 has already despatched more LNG to China this year than in the whole of 2025. LNG Journal's own research shows 24 cargoes totalling 1.49 MMt sailed for China by 16 July on a sailed-date basis, against 17 cargoes and 1.05 MMt across all of last year, a total passed as early as 19 May.

GTT has received an order from China Chengda Engineering Co. to design three very large onshore LNG storage tanks for PipeChina’s Yuedong LNG terminal in Jieyang, Guangdong province.

“Full exports from Arctic LNG 2 would crash the TTF,” Energy Aspects warns, arguing European gas markets would not be able to absorb the wave of additional supply without requiring US LNG shut-ins to balance.

Gaztransport and Technigaz (GTT), the French LNG storage technology company for shipping and onshore, said it received its first order from a new partner, the Chinese shipyard China Merchants Heavy Industry in Jiangsu province, for the tank designs for four LNG carriers.

GTT will design the tanks of these four vessels, which will each offer a total cargo capacity of 180,000 cubic metres and would be fitted with the Mark III Flex membrane containment system.

The delivery of the vessels to an as yet unnamed European owner is scheduled between the first quarter of 2026 and the first quarter of 2027.

“We are glad to receive this first order from China Merchants Heavy Industry-Jiangsu for the design of the tanks of four new LNG carriers,” said Philippe Berterottière, Chairman and Chief Executive of GTT.

“With this fifth shipyard, China confirms its growing role in the construction of LNG carriers and opens up new opportunities in a context of strong demand,” stated Berterottière.

China newbuilds

Simple Hu, General Manager of China Merchants Industry Holdings, said the order for large-scale LNG carriers was the first for the Haimen shipyard in Jiangsu

“We are excited to turn our vision into reality, offering state-of-the-art vessels to the growing LNGC market,” he added.

“We highly appreciate the support provided by the GTT Group, whose experience was instrumental in the preparation and development of our solution,” he said.

GTT continues to expand its relationships with Chinese companies and shipyards with technology accords for maritime and onshore LNG tanks storage tanks.

PipeChina Engineering Technology Innovation Co. signed a cooperation agreement on April 6, 2023, for the evaluation and further promotion of GTT’s membrane containment technology for onshore LNG projects in China.

PipeChina Group is currently operating seven LNG receiving terminals in China and three new LNG import projects are under construction.

As the largest operator of LNG infrastructure in China, PipeChina said it was keen to expand its cooperation with GTT.

Chinese natural gas imports by pipeline and as liquefied natural gas increased by more than 11 percent in March, though were still lower for the first quarter compared with 2022.

While China’s estimated LNG imports dropped by 18.8 percent in 2022, the Beijing government is making plans to underwrite imported supplies of LNG, pipeline natural gas and coal during 2023 to guarantee power supplies.

China overtook Japan in 2021 to become the world’s largest LNG importer with 78.93MT of imports, though has now slipped back to see 2022 shipments totalling just 64.15 million, according to shipping data.

The shipments received at the Chinese network of 23 regasification terminals declined during the year because Covid-19 restrictions slowed up economic growth and energy demand.

Most of the imported cargoes in 2022 were handled by terminals operated by the state networks company PipeChina as well as the oil and gas majors China National Offshore Oil Corp., China Petroleum & Chemical Corp. (Sinopec) and China National Petroleum Corp.

According to energy consultancies such as UK-based Wood Mackenzie, Chinese imports are expected to rise again in 2023 to between 70MT and 72MT.

Energy bonds

China also announced a financing measure on January 6 under the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) to ensure energy supplies at state-owned power plants by providing more funding to purchase natural gas, oil and especially coal for power generation.

The State Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) of the State Council said it would enable energy operators and power generation groups to issue 200 billion Chinese yuan ($29 billion) in special bonds to help finance and “fortify energy supply” in the country.

“These funds will be allocated to power plants in a timely manner so as to especially meet their coal needs this year,” said the state assets regulator .

“Centrally administered State-owned enterprises have generated 5 trillion kilowatt-hours of electricity since 2022, accounting for 63.1 percent of the country's total,” it added.

The SASAC said it was currently able to monitor the operations of 195 coal mines, 572 coal-powered plants, 727 hydro-electric plants and 96 gas-powered plants owned by state-owned enterprises (SOEs) across China.

“Since the end of September 2021, State Grid Corp of China and China Southern Power Grid, two central SOEs, have organized cross-regional and cross-provincial power support more than 3,000 times and transmitted nearly 50 billion kWh of electricity to places in need,” explained the SASAC .

“Ensuring sufficient coal, natural gas and oil supplies will be priorities for the government and central SOEs this year as imports of energy-related resources face various pressures such as high commodity prices,” added the statement.

Natural gas output by China’s energy majors surged over 7 percent on an annual basis to 189.99 billion cubic metres in 2022 while total stored stocks reached 17.72 Bcm, a 17.2 percent year-on-year increase.

China Gas Holdings, one of the leading non-state controlled companies in the Chinese city-gas and LNG sectors and state-backed Beijing Gas Group, have signed a strategic cooperation agreement to stabilise LNG flows to North China.

China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC), the dominant Chinese LNG and pipeline natural gas project company, said that along with other Chinese energy majors it was making preparations for freezing temperatures forecast to hit northern Chinese provinces, including the capital Beijing, in the weeks ahead.

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.

Chinese liquefied natural gas imports soared to a record in November and surpassed the monthly total of shipments received by Japan, the world’s largest LNG importer.