Abstract:
Under the context of COVID-19 pandemic and PipeChina establishment, this paper reviews the development of China's natural gas industry chain in 2020 and explores its development prospect in 2021. In 2020, the apparent consumption of natural gas in China reached 3 238×10
8 m
3, with a year-on-year growth of 5.5%, and the reserve and production of domestic gas was well increased, reaching a production of 1 886×10
8 m
3 and realizing a year-on-year growth of 8.4%. However, the growth rate of imported natural gas reached an all-time low, with the imported pipeline gas and LNG totaling 1 363×10
8 m
3 at a year-on-year growth of 3.1% only, and the external dependence declined continuously. In 2021, with the large-scale vaccination of COVID-19 vaccine, the order of domestic production and living is fully restored. Further, with the drive of favorable environmental policies, the increment and growth of natural gas demand rises significantly compared to that in 2020, and it was predicted that the growth rate of market demand will reach 8.6% in 2021. Finally, in view of the development of China's natural gas industry chain, the following three suggestions were put forward: (1) speeding up the construction of gas storage facilities, (2) unifying and coordinating the procurement of long-term trade resources of different domestic companies, and (3) implementing a unified floating ratio for the residential and non-residential gas in winter.