China’s natural gas consumption to peak in 2040: CNOOC

China's state-controlled CNOOC expects domestic natural gas consumption to peak at 700bn m³ in 2040, said CNOOC's senior economist Xie Xuguang at a liquefied fuel shipping conference in Chongqing over 22-24 May.

The conference was jointly organised by the China Shipowners' Association and Langfang International Pipeline Exhibition. CNOOC also estimated China's gas consumption to hit 410bn m³ in 2024.

These most recent projections are aligned with earlier estimates from fellow state-controlled CNPC's economic and technology research institute in Beijing, which forecast Chinese gas demand will rise by 24bn m³ in 2024 in its annual report published on 28 February.

International Gas Union's president Li Yalan expects natural gas consumption in China to hit 500bn m³ in 2030 and eventually 650bn m³ in 2040. And all above growth scenarios could in fact be further enhanced should gas prices remain at "reasonable" levels, she added.

She did not expand on the definition of "reasonable", but recent buying interest from mostly second-tier buyers in China hinted that the ideal target price considered acceptable for buyers in the country could be no higher than $9-9.50/mn Btu.

Current spot prices are still considered way out of reach for Chinese importers. The front half-month of the ANEA — the Argus assessment for spot LNG deliveries to northeast Asia — was last assessed at $11.525/mn Btu on 23 May, $1/mn Btu higher from a week earlier.

Factors such as higher-than-average temperatures in northeast Asia, southeast Asia, south Europe and the US, and some remaining concerns over production outages in the Atlantic and Pacific basins have resulted in European gas hub prices strengthening and Asian spot prices also jumping higher as a result. This is despite higher-than-average inventories in traditional major importing countries such as Japan and South Korea, and expectations of higher nuclear availability in Japan and South Korea to weigh on gas-fired generation in the summer.

But traders have also pointed out that such higher prices may compel buyers in Asia to withdraw from the spot market, freezing out additional demand and eventually weighing on prices again.

China has continued to step up its LNG imports even as domestic gas production extended gains in April. The country imported more LNG in April as compared to in 2023, and imports even hit a record high in March.