China Natural Gas Imports in Jan & Feb 2021 Jump by 17.4% Y-O-Y
According to China’s General Administration of Custom’s latest released data, China’s natural gas imports, including piped gas import and LNG import, reached 20.8 million tons in the first two months of 2021, up 17.4% Y-O-Y, and the import price averaged RMB 2,292.2/mt, down 17.1% Y-O-Y.
China’s natural gas import was impacted by COVID-19 in Q1, 2020, and the cold winter attack in Dec 2020 pushed buyers to purchase more delivery in Jan 2021. Also, 2021’s Chinese New Year holiday season performed much better than 2020’s national lockdown mode, helping China’s natural gas import to achieve such an impressive annual growth at over 17% Y-O-Y.
More specifically speaking, as for the LNG import, some expansion projects were put into use before 2020-2021 winter, while many terminals reported historical high LNG receiving during the winter. Especially, from Dec 2020, because of the extreme cold spell and historical low temperature, China’s LNG buyers were enthusiastic to add cargoes to the busy schedule, and the price at that time was not as crazy as the soaring prices in Jan and Feb. After the second severe cold spell in 2020-2021 winter, China’s LNG import started to dip gradually from Jan 15 in line with the warming up temperature. Despite several small cold spells right after, China’s LNG import prepared for the upcoming CNY holiday, which is the traditional LNG import bottom of the year, and many cargoes were rerouted in February. In general, it is believed that China’s LNG import surpassed 8 million tons in Jan and also over 5.5 million tons in Feb as estimated based on the AIS shipping data.
