Natural gas production, imports up

Source: Xinhua | 2018-10-22

China’s imports of natural gas continued fast growth in September while domestic production increased steadily, official data shows.

Imports of natural gas surged 28.3 percent year on year to 7.62 million tons last month, the National Bureau of Statistics said.

The pace was 9.7 percentage points slower than the increase in August. In the first nine months, imported natural gas totaled 64.78 million tons, up 34 percent year on year.

Natural gas imports have grown steadily to meet increasing domestic demand, partly driven by government initiatives to use clean energy for winter heating instead of coal.

Natural gas output increased 8.5 percent in September, 1.2 percentage points down from August.