Imported natural gas increased significantly or promoted domestic gas prices in the first five months

Business News Agency June 28th Since the beginning of this year, China’s natural gas imports have continued to increase. Due to the high price of imported natural gas, this will increase the cost of gas for domestic residents and enterprises to some extent.

Statistics show that in May China's apparent consumption of natural gas was 11.3 billion cubic meters, a year-on-year increase of 12.9%. On the other hand, the domestic natural gas output in May was 8.4 billion cubic meters, which was a year-on-year increase of 5.1% and a decrease of 1.4% compared with the previous period. It is still unable to meet domestic consumption. In this huge gap, in May China imported about 3.3 billion cubic meters of natural gas, a year-on-year increase of 28.8%.

In the first five months of this year, China's natural gas consumption was 61.3 billion cubic meters, a year-on-year increase of 15.9%. However, the domestic production of natural gas was 45.7 billion cubic meters, which was only 7.3% higher than the same period last year. Imported natural gas reached 16.3 billion cubic meters, an increase of 42.8%.

According to Wan Xuezhi, a researcher in the energy industry of China Investment Consulting Group, "The data released by the National Development and Reform Commission shows that China's natural gas demand growth is significantly faster than domestic production, and a large amount of natural gas needs to be provided through imports. Since China's current natural gas production tends to be stable, it is high. Unabated rigid demand will inevitably promote the increasing proportion of imported natural gas, which to a certain extent can ease the shortage of domestic natural gas supply."

Lin Boqiang, energy economic expert and director of the China Energy Economics Center at Xiamen University, told the Daily Economic News reporter: “From the current situation, the cost of imported natural gas is roughly 2.5 times the cost of domestic natural gas. With imported natural gas in the domestic natural gas The proportion of total consumption will continue to increase, which will, to some extent, increase the residents' gas costs."

Since May 31, 2010, the National Development and Reform Commission issued the Notice on Raising the Base Price of Domestic Onshore Natural Gas, including adjustments in many places, including Lanzhou, Gansu, Jinan, Shandong, Hefei, Anhui, Wuhan, Hubei and Taiyuan, Shanxi. Higher prices for natural gas for residents.

According to China's natural gas price reform plan, the direction of reform of the natural gas price formation mechanism is to liberalize the ex-factory price of natural gas and form market competition. It is intended to use the "market net return value" pricing method, that is, the method of simulating the market, to convert the corresponding natural gas price based on the alternative energy price formed by market competition. Although it has been piloted in Guangdong and Guangxi, it has not yet been implemented throughout the country.

Lin Boqiang predicts that before the formal introduction of natural gas price reform, the NDRC may raise the price of natural gas across the country once.