China Petroleum Corporation Economic and Technological Research Institute (hereinafter referred to as “PetroChina Economic Research Institute”) released in Beijing on January 16, the “Development Report of the Domestic and Foreign Oil and Gas Industry 2018″ (hereinafter referred to as “the report”) predicts that in 2019, environmental protection policies will continue to drive the rapid growth of China’s natural gas demand, at the same time, the output of natural gas will increase steadily, the import volume will maintain a high growth rate, and the supply and demand of natural Tightly balanced, seasonal supply and demand contradictions will continue to ease with the steady improvement of peak-shaving capacity of gas storage.

Sun Wenyu, an economist at the Institute of Natural Gas Market Research, China Petroleum Economic Research Institute, said at the briefing that in 2018, China’s natural gas supply security system made positive progress. Local governments and gas supply enterprises actively constructed gas storage and peak shaving facilities, accelerated the interconnection of pipeline networks, prepared domestic and foreign resources, strengthened demand-side management, and relieved gas supply tension in winter through comprehensive management.

“However, the development of China’s natural gas industry is still not balanced enough. In the future, we will actively increase domestic gas supply, continue to strengthen the capacity building of gas storage and peak shaving, speed up the improvement of natural gas pipeline network construction, and improve the natural gas supply security system in terms of resources, reserves and institutional mechanisms.” Sun Wenyu said.

According to the report, environmental factors will be the main driving force for the sustained and rapid growth of China’s natural gas demand in the short term. With the implementation of the “Three-year Action Plan for Winning the Blue Sky Defence War”, local governments will strengthen the control of loose coal combustion. At the same time, due to the comprehensive effects of macroeconomic development transformation, favorable policies for small and medium-sized enterprises, and stricter environmental protection policies, the major gas industries such as building materials, metallurgy and chemical industry will continue to promote industrial upgrading, and the demand for gas will maintain growth.

The report predicts that China’s natural gas consumption will reach 308 billion cubic meters in 2019, an increase of 11.4% over the same period last year, and a decrease of 5.2 percentage points over 2018. Among them, urban gas will continue to grow rapidly, increasing by 12.1% to 111 billion cubic meters, industrial gas demand by 14.2% to 104 billion cubic meters, and power generation gas and chemical gas by less than 10%.

In terms of production, the report predicts that major suppliers will actively increase investment in exploration and development, domestic natural gas production will grow steadily, and shale gas production will maintain a relatively rapid growth rate. It is estimated that China’s natural gas production (coal-based gas) will reach 170.8 billion cubic meters in 2019, an increase of 8.6% over the previous year, accounting for 54.4% of the supply structure.

On the import side, the report said that in 2019, some newly signed liquefied natural gas (LNG) contracts began to be implemented, China-Russia Eastern Line was put into operation, and Kazakhstan’s imported pipeline gas volume increased, which will jointly promote the sustained and rapid growth of natural gas imports. It is estimated that the annual import volume will be 143 billion cubic meters, an increase of 14% over the same period last year, and the degree of external dependence will reach 46.4%. Among them, imported pipeline gas was 58 billion cubic meters, an increase of 11.5% over the same period last year; imported LNG was 62.5 million tons (about 85 billion cubic meters), an increase of 15.7% over the same period last year.

In addition, the intensive operation of LNG receiving stations will provide a strong guarantee for the rapid growth of LNG imports in China. According to the report, with CNOOC Tianjin LNG receiving station, CNOOC Fangchenggang LNG receiving station and CNOOC Tangshan LNG receiving station phase III, China’s LNG receiving capacity will reach 75.55 million tons per year in 2019.

In terms of import gas prices, taking into account the fluctuation of international oil prices and the ease of supply in the international LNG market, the report predicts that import pipeline gas and import LNG prices will fall slightly in 2019.

Bai Hua, an economist at the Institute of Natural Gas Market Research, China Petroleum Research Institute, said at a briefing that in 2019, supply and demand in the global natural gas market will continue to be loose, and output and demand will grow at the same time, with an expected growth rate of 3%. Among them, LNG demand will maintain a relatively fast growth rate, and Asia-Pacific LNG demand will account for nearly 80%. Spot prices are expected to fall as LNG trade activity continues to rise.

On January 16, the Asian phenol market closed at a stable price of $944-946 per ton CIF.

London January 16th news, the London Metal Exchange (LME) in nickel prices on Wednesday hit a 10 week high, due to inventory decline and intertemporal price narrowed implied market supply.

The LME index of nickel fell 0.4%, to $11630 a tonne, had hit the highest level since November 8th 11770 dollars.

The nickel price has hit 15 months from January 2nd lows of about 10%. Due to the slowdown in economic growth China concerns, industrial metals prices fell more broadly, the price of nickel.

Nickel inventory LME warehouse close to multi-year lows this week, spot price of nickel is after delivery of the contract soared, suggesting recent supply shortage.

But Citibank analyst Oliver Nugent said the price narrowed may be due to temporary factors LME nickel futures contract expires Wednesday monthly.

He added that the nickel market in 2018 slightly short supply 40 thousand tons, to 2019 may be roughly balanced. He is expected by the end of this year, the nickel price will be around $11500.

LME nickel inventories of about 200 thousand tons, less than 2018 at the beginning of the year more than 360 thousand tons, the lowest level since mid 2013.

Other metals, copper closed at $5970 per ton, up 0.8%,

Aluminum futures rose 0.7%, to close at $1859 per ton;

Zinc rose 1.7% to $2497 per ton;

Lead up to $1975 per ton 0.4%;

The tin was down 0.5% to $20575 a tonne.

In recent years, with the continuous increase of domestic environmental protection efforts, the transformation of recycled plastics, a policy-oriented industry, has become more and more obvious. Especially after December 31, 2017, waste and scrap materials from living sources were banned outside the country, the import pattern of the recycling industry has changed dramatically, and the demand gap of 6-8 million tons per year has been opened. On the domestic side, the start-up of production enterprises has become the most serious problem at present, and the start-up face directly affects the domestic supply, therefore, whether it is import or country. The change of production and its supply has become a concern of the industry.

Reporters learned that in the past five years, the import volume of recycled PE in China has shown a downward trend. Recycled polyethylene imports began to decline in 2015. Since the hedge action in February 2013, environmental protection in the recycling market has become more and more stringent. In addition, the import of recycled polyethylene declined rapidly from 2015 to 2016, which coincided with Waterloo in the plastic industry. According to statistics from Jin Lianchuang, imports of recycled PE fell to 35683,000 tons in 2015, a decline of 18.95%. In the following years, imports declined at a rate of 20% to 30%. Until this year, imports fell to freezing point.

Since December 31, 2017, the Implementing Plan for the Reform of the Management System of Prohibiting the Entry of Foreign Waste and Promoting the Import of Solid Waste has been formally implemented. China has prohibited the import of 24 Categories of solid waste in four categories. “The implementation of the”ban on waste”has caused tremendous changes in the recycled plastics market. From January to September 2018, the import volume of recycled PE was 103,000 tons, a decrease of 166,160,000 tons compared with the same period last year, a decrease of 99.39%. Xu Xiujun, an analyst at Jinlianchuang Plastics, said.

In April 2018, the Ministry of Ecological Environment and the General Administration of Customs jointly issued that 16 kinds of solid wastes, such as waste plastics from industrial sources, were transferred from the Catalogue of Solid Wastes Restricting Imports as Raw Materials to the Catalogue of Solid Wastes Prohibiting Imports, which has been implemented since 31 December 2018. That is to say, imports of recycled plastics will cease to exist after 2019. “The domestic production trend of recycled polyethylene is roughly the same as that of imported polyethylene, but the difference is that the domestic production growth trend is different.” Xu Xiujun said that with the continuous strengthening of domestic environmental protection in recent years, especially in 2017-2018, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment strictly inspected “scattered and dirty” enterprises, the Blue Sky Defense War in 2018-2019, the Central Environmental Protection Inspection and so on. Under the pressure of the policy, the overall start-up rate was affected by the strict inspection of waste water and exhaust gas pollution, and domestic production declined. According to statistics from Jin Lianchuang, the domestic recycled polyethylene recovery from January to October 2018 was 2.4277 million tons, 17.84% less than that in 2017. “The downstream demand side is still a major factor affecting supply. For the whole year of this year, the demand side of terminal has not improved significantly, and the phenomenon of warmth is obvious. In addition, upstream products factories are more or less affected by environmental protection, and the overall pace of trade is slow. Xu Xiujun said that in recent years, the price difference between old and new materials has been less than 1,000 yuan. With the narrowing of the price gap, some customers tend to increase the trend of new materials, and the pressure of shipment in the recycling market increases.

Xu Xiujun believed that due to the construction of regeneration market parks and more and more EIA manufacturers putting into production, as well as the increasing awareness of national recycling, the stock of domestic wool materials will gradually rise. In the near future, the domestic supply of regenerated polyethylene industry will continue to rise, and the import gap will gradually be filled.

On January 14, the inventory of zinc ingots in London LME market was 126 225 tons, with a decrease of 575 tons, representing a decrease of 0.45%.

On January 14, the LME zinc ingot stock was 126225 tons, of which 109025 tons were registered warehouse receipts and 17200 tons were cancelled warehouse receipts, accounting for 13.63%.