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Arrival will have 'significant impact' on the global natural gas industry
A liquefied natural gas ship named Methane Rita Andrea carrying 60,000 metric tons of theclean fuel from Queensland, Australia will arrive at China's receiving terminal in Tianjin inaround nine days－a shipment that is expected to help further improve the country's energyconsumption structure.
The LNG is coming from the Curtis LNG project, China's first foreign LNG operation, which isowned by the country's largest LNG importer CNOOC Ltd.
The country's biggest offshore oil and gas company signed an agreement worth $1.93 billionlast year to buy LNG from British gas producer BG Group, increasing its stake in BG'sQueensland Curtis LNG project from 10 percent to 50 percent at the same time.
"The success of this first cargo shipment to China from the project in Australia will have asignificant impact on the global natural gas industry," said Wang Yilin, chairman of CNOOC.
With CNOOC as the second-largest shareholder and investor in the Curtis project, it is thefirst time that China has participated in the full industrial chain of an LNG project.
Through the cooperation, CNOOC will receive a stable LNG supply of 8.6 million tonsannually from QCLNG.
With China aiming to raise the share of clean energy within its total primary energyconsumption mix, natural gas has become increasingly important.
On the one hand, the State-owned energy players are investing in conventional natural gasand unconventional resources including shale gas production to raise domestic output.
On the other, energy companies led by CNOOC are increasing their LNG imports to meetgrowing domestic demand.
Michael Stoppard, chief strategist of global gas with US-based consultancy IHS, told anindustrial conference in Beijing earlier this month that the global LNG market currently hasmore supply than demand and that supply is set to grow significantly, starting from 2016.
He said the LNG spot market has also weakened in 2014, and that he expected real changeover the next two years.
Qian Xingkun, vice-president of CNPC Economics and Technology Research Institute, said: "All the LNG suppliers are currently focusing on the China market."
He said Asia will have demand for 50 million metric tons of new LNG imports annually by2020, and China will take a major part of that, with annual imports expected to grow about 10percent.
Faced with this growing Chinese LNG demand, Qian called for the creation of an alliance ofAsian LNG buyers, which could ensure better prices.
