CNPC Withdraws over 10 bcm Natural Gas from UGS
According to China’s top oil and gas producer and the largest UGS operator, the state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), the company has withdrawn over 10 bcm of natural gas from its 24 UGS facilities across the nation by March 10, 2021, and the withdrawal schedule of 2020-2021 withdraw season was set to 10.4 bcm, taking up over 80% of CNPC’s UGS working gas reserve.
This winter, impacted by the La Nina phenomenon, China experienced the coldest winter in four decades. Especially, the two extreme cold spells in mid-Dec and early-Jan posed great challenges to China’s natural gas supply capacity and capability. On Dec 4, 2020, China’s daily gas consumption volume surpassed 1.1 bcm. The national supply level of CNPC reached 700 mcm/d 7 days prior to schedule, and that of Beijing reached 100 mcm/d 13 days prior to schedule.
Confronting this challenge, CNPC maintained high workloads of UGS withdrawal continuously from the beginning of the winter heating season. From Nov 23, 2020, CNPC maintained daily withdrawal volume over 100 mcm/d for 65 days in a row, four times higher than the last winter heating season, and the highest daily withdrawal volume reached 134 mcm/d, 24% higher than that in 2019. According to CNPC, the UGS withdrawal volume took up over 10% of CNPC’s winter natural gas supply portfolio, and helped China to pass this winter with no severe supply shortage on the national level.
