According to the latest data released by the General Administration of Customs on February 14, China’s imports of natural gas reached a record high of 98.09 million tons in January 2019, an increase of 26.8% over the same period last year, and the cumulative imports of natural gas reached 4.86 billion US dollars (33.51 billion RMB), an increase of 59.1% over the same period last year.
Thus, in January 2019, the average import price of natural gas was 495.9 US dollars per ton (3620.1 yuan per ton), an increase of 103.1 US dollars per ton, or 26.2% over the previous year.
In terms of quantity, in January 2019, China’s natural gas imports reached a record high. We know that China’s natural gas imports remain high in winter heating demand. In January of this year, while the temperature continued to be low, the natural gas supply in Kangzen, Turkmenistan, fell sharply in the short term, causing short-term panic in the market. In order to stabilize the market and guarantee the demand for natural gas during the Spring Festival in early February, the import volume of natural gas in January continued to increase by 576,000 tons at the high level of 9.233 million tons in December last year, an increase of 6.2%.
| PVA |
In terms of unit import prices, the cost of natural gas imports in January was slightly lower than the historical high of $500.3 per ton in December last year, a decrease of less than 1.0%. However, compared with the same period last year, the unit price of imports increased significantly in January. In addition to the factors driving up demand, the rise in oil prices throughout the year has also affected the unit price of natural gas imports to a certain extent, according to the operators.
With the rapid growth of natural gas imports under low domestic supply, China’s dependence on natural gas has also increased substantially. “In 2018, China’s natural gas imports are expected to reach 125.4 billion cubic metres, an increase of nearly 30 billion cubic metres, with an external dependence of 45.3%, an increase of 6.2 percentage points over the same period last year.” According to the Report on the Development of Oil and Gas Industry at Home and Abroad in 2018 (hereinafter referred to as the Report) issued by the Economic and Technological Research Institute of China Petroleum Group. At the same time, the report predicts that the domestic demand for natural gas will continue to grow rapidly in 2019, but the growth rate will decline somewhat, and the import volume will continue to grow rapidly.
| POLYVINYL ALCOHOL |