Nov China Natural Gas Import Jumps 21.9% from Oct
According to the latest statement of China General Administration of Customs (CGAC), China’s natural gas import in November 2020 jumped to 9.17 million tons, up 21.9% from October’s traditional pre-winter low but still down 2.5% from 2019’s record. The accumulative annual import volume of natural gas has reached 90.44 million tons, up 3.9% Y-O-Y.
SCI’s LNG shipping data shows the November LNG receiving volume is expected at 6.85 million tons, up 36.4% M-O-M and 6.0% Y-O-Y, and accordingly, the November piped gas import volume is expected at 2.33 million tons, down 7.3% M-O-M and 21.2% Y-O-Y. After ruling out the clearance deviation at customs, the import volume of LNG and PNG both performed under-expected but for different reasons.
As for LNG import, the offline of PipeChina Beihai terminal, which is one of the most active LNG receiving terminals in 2021, happened at the beginning of November and lasted in the rest days of the month, reducing the momentum of November LNG import to a certain extent. Although other terminals maintained high imports at the beginning of the winter season and CNOOC tried the best to reroute cargoes for the Beihai terminal, major impacts still affected the monthly import. Thus, China’s November LNG import jumped from October, only because October’s import was unusually low, and the year-on-year growth failed to meet the previously estimated goal at 7 million tons for November 2020.
