China’s demand for gas continues to increase, with gas imports for 2011 up 130% on the same period in 2010.
According to China’s National Development and Reform Commission, imports in May totalled 2.6 billion cubic meters.
The rate of China’s increase demand is startling: the country imported 1.65 billion of natural gas in February.
In related news, China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) imported more than 5.7 billion cubic metres (bcm) of natural gas from Turkmenistan via a landmark pipeline in the first five months of this year, China Petroleum Daily reported on Monday, according to Reuters.
The imports accounted for over 10 percent of China’s domestic gas consumption and half of China’s total gas imports in the same period that include both pipelined gas and gas shipped home in the form of liquefied natural gas, the company newspaper said.
CNPC has installed all 29 large gas compressing units on the pipeline and will bring the annual transportation capacity of the pipe to 30 billion cubic meters by June next year.
The pipeline spans nearly 2,000 km in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan before reaching the Chinese border in northwestern Xinjiang region.
