China’s natural gas imports, including pipeline gas and LNG, rose in October compared to the same month last year, according to customs data.
Natural gas imports during the last month reached about 8.79 million tonnes, rising 15.5 percent compared to 7.61 million tonnes in October 2022, the data from the General Administration of Customs shows.
Imports dropped some 1.35 million tonnes compared to 10.14 million tonnes in the prior month.
Moreover, the country’s gas imports rose by 8.8 percent year-on-year to 96.50 million tonnes in January-October.
China paid about $51.1 billion for gas imports in this period, a drop of 7.3 percent compared to the last year.
There is currently no official data for LNG imports in October.
China’s LNG imports dropped in September after rising for seven months in a row, and the country imported 5.69 million tonnes in September, a drop of 2.8 percent year-on-year.
The country imported 51.1 million tonnes of LNG during January-September, up by 10.1 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-September period in 2021 when China imported 58.48 million tonnes of LNG.
China has overtaken Japan as the world’s largest LNG importer this year.
During the January-September period, Japan imported some 48.9 million tonnes of LNG, down by about 2.2 million tonnes compared to China’s 51.1 million tonnes.