China’s natural gas imports, including pipeline gas and LNG, rose by 22.7 percent in August compared to the same month last year, according to customs data.
Natural gas imports during the last month reached 10.85 million tonnes, the data from the General Administration of Customs shows.
This compares to 8.84 million tonnes in the same month last year and 10.30 million tonnes in the prior month.
Moreover, the country’s gas imports rose by 9.4 percent year-on-year to 77.70 million tonnes in January-August.
China paid about $42 billion for gas imports in this period, a drop of 0.9 percent compared to the last year.
There is currently no available data for LNG imports during the period.
China’s LNG imports rose for the sixth month in a row in July, and the country imported 5.86 million tonnes in July, a rise of 24.3 percent year-on-year.
The country imported 39.24 million tonnes of LNG during January-July, up by 9.3 percent compared to the same period last year.
China has overtaken Japan as the world’s largest LNG importer in the first half of this year and the country increased its lead during July.
Japan imported some 37.71 million tonnes of LNG during January-July.
