[BEIJING] Chinese liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports are at risk of another weak year as disappointing industrial demand and persistently high global prices look set to reduce purchases.
Imports will fall about 5 per cent to 73 million tonnes this year, meaning China may lose its position as the world’s biggest buyer of the super-chilled fuel to Japan, according to BloombergNEF (BNEF). The outlook for 2026 is also not encouraging: Overall gas demand is set to slump, suggesting it has decoupled with GDP growth, BNEF analysts said at a summit this week.
China was the fastest-growing LNG market before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 triggered a surge in spot prices. Back then, Asia’s largest economy had been expected by BNEF to get to 100 million tonnes of imports by this year, but analysts have been forced to repeatedly downgrade their outlooks on persistently weaker-than-expected demand.
A wave of new global LNG supply will probably reduce spot prices next year and potentially spur some additional Chinese buying, but the demand picture remains shaky. There’s been a decline in industrial activity across the steel, glass and cement sectors, key sources of LNG consumption, and Beijing’s campaigns to tackle overcapacity, as well as the trade war with the US, could also dampen purchases.
Gas-fired power plants are facing intense competition from coal and rapidly expanding renewables such as solar and wind. The utilisation rate of facilities that burn gas has dropped to the lower end of the five-year seasonal range, as rising LNG costs force them to curb generation.
Chinese LNG buyers, meanwhile, have more long-term supply contracts starting next year, but given that demand is deteriorating, they may choose to divert some fuel to places such as Europe, where prices are higher. This is likely to cement China’s role in balancing the global gas market, as companies there shift to becoming traders as well as consumers.
“The path to portfolio trading is not by choice, but rather necessity,” Zhang Yaoyu, global head of LNG and new energies at PetroChina International, said at the BNEF Shanghai Summit on Wednesday.
From a long-term perspective, Chinese gas demand is still supported by the expansion of import terminals, with capacity potentially doubling by 2030. But whether those facilities will be fully utilised will depend on price and demand. BLOOMBERG
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