China’s natural gas imports, including pipeline gas and LNG, rose in November compared to the same month last year, according to customs data.
Natural gas imports during the last month reached about 10.95 million tonnes, rising 6.2 percent compared to 10.31 million tonnes in November 2022, the data from the General Administration of Customs shows.
Imports increased some 2.16 million tonnes compared to 8.79 million tonnes in the prior month as demand in China increased due to winter heating season.
Moreover, the country’s gas imports rose by 8.5 percent year-on-year to 107.39 million tonnes in January-November.
China paid about $56.9 billion for gas imports in this period, a drop of 8.9 percent compared to the last year.
There is currently no official data for LNG imports in November.
China’s LNG imports rose in October, and the country imported 5.17 million tonnes in October, an increase of 29.5 percent year-on-year.
The country imported 56.25 million tonnes of LNG during January-October, up by 11.5 percent compared to the same period last year.
However, Chinese LNG imports fell last year due to due to very high spot LNG prices and Covid lockdowns, which affected economic activity.
LNG imports dropped compared to the January-October period in 2021 when China imported 64.50 million tonnes of LNG.
China has overtaken Japan as the world’s largest LNG importer this year.
During the January-October period, Japan imported some 54.3 million tonnes, down by about 1.9 million tonnes compared to China’s 56.2 million tonnes.