China 2024 LNG imports expected to rise 8.1% on year to 77 mil mt: CNPC ETRI

China's LNG imports are expected to grow by 8.1% year on year to 77.11 million mt, or 106.4 billion cubic meters, in 2024, according to state-owned CNPC's Economics & Technology Research Institute data released Feb. 28.

In 2023, China imported 71.32 million mt, or 98.4 Bcm, of LNG, up 11.7% year on year. Projected LNG imports in 2024, however, may still be under pre-Ukraine crisis levels, when China imported 78.8 million mt in 2021, according to customs data.

ETRI expects the volume of China's new long-term LNG contracts that start deliveries from 2024 at around 11.46 million mt/year. This will be higher than the 6.24 million mt/year of new long-term contracts that started deliveries in 2023, ETRI's historical data showed.

At the same time, China is expected to add a record 60 million mt/year of new LNG receiving capacity in 2024, raising its total LNG receiving capacity to 176 million mt/year, up 52% year on year, according to ETRI.

There were six LNG terminals projects, including new and expansion projects, which started operations in 2023, adding a capacity of 18.8 million mt/year, bringing China's total LNG receiving capacity to 116 million mt/year at the end of 2023, ETRI data showed.

With the entry of four second-tier companies in 2023, there are 14 LNG terminal operators in China, ETRI said, adding that the LNG receiving capacity of second-tier gas companies now accounts for 25% of the total, a significant increase of 10 percentage points year on year.

Four new LNG terminals, operated by second-tier companies -- Suntien Green Energy, Guangzhou Gas, Zhejiang Energy and Beijing Gas -- were put into operation in 2023, S&P Global Commodity Insights reported earlier.

China's pipeline gas imports are expected to rise 8.2% year on year to 72.6 Bcm in 2024, and its total natural gas imports (including both piped gas and LNG) are also expected to see a year-on-year increase of 8.2% to 179.1 Bcm in 2024, ETRI said.

China imported a total 165.6 Bcm of natural gas in 2023, up 9.5% year on year, implying an import dependence of 42.3%, up 1.1 percentage points from the previous year, ETRI added.

Production and demand

China's natural gas production is expected to reach 245.8 Bcm in 2024, up 4.5% on the year, ETRI data showed.

In 2023, China's natural gas production was 235.3 Bcm, up 12.6 Bcm or 5.7% on the year. Among the total production, unconventional gas output reached 96 Bcm last year, accounting for over 40% of the total, according to ETRI.

Meanwhile, China's natural gas demand is expected to grow 6.1%, or 24 Bcm, to 415.7 Bcm in 2024, ETRI said.

China's apparent natural gas consumption was about 394.53 Bcm in 2023, rebounding 7.6% year on year, National Development and Reform Commission's data released late January showed.

Due to insufficient hydropower supply, natural gas power generation played an important supplementary role in the first eight months of 2023, which helped drive up the growth of total natural gas consumption last year, ETRI said.

ETRI said demand from the natural gas power generation sector will continue to lead demand growth in 2024, rising 7.5% year on year. However, the growth rate will be lower than that of 9.6% in 2023, ETRI's data showed.

The remaining three major downstream sectors -- industrial, city gas and fertilizer & chemicals sectors -- are forecast to see year-on-year demand growth of 6.8%, 6.1% and 1%, respectively, in 2024, according to ETRI's data.

Macroeconomic recovery, declining international gas prices and increasing demand for natural gas as an alternative energy will continue to drive gas demand growth, ETRI said.

China's long-distance natural gas pipelines reached a total length of 87,000 kilometers, and its total working gas storage capacity reached 23 Bcm as of end-2023, accounting for 5.9% of the total gas consumption, according to ETRI.

Platts assessed the April JKM at $8.259/MMBtu Feb. 28, up 11.5 cents/MMBtu on the day, S&P Global data showed.