China’s natural gas imports, including pipeline gas and LNG, rose by 17.3 percent in May when compared to the same month last year, according to customs data.
Natural gas imports during the last month reached 10.64 million tonnes, the data from the General Administration of Customs shows.
This compares to 9.07 million tonnes in the same month last year.
Moreover, the country’s gas imports rose by 3.3 percent year-on-year to 46.29 million tonnes in January-May.
China paid about $26.8 billion for gas imports in the first five months of this year, a rise of 0.5 percent when compared to the last year.
There is currently no available data for LNG imports during the period.
China’s LNG imports rose for the third month in a row in April, and the country imported 4.77 million tonnes in April, a rise of 10.3 percent year-on-year.
China imported 21.16 million tonnes of LNG during the first four months of this year, down by 1.7 percent compared to the same period last year.
The country has started to relax Covid-related measures in December last year and spot prices dropped considerably this year.
The JKM for July settled at $9.235 per MMBtu on Wednesday.