China’s LNG imports reached 78.93 million tonnes in 2021, hitting a new record high due to rising demand from the power generation and industrial sectors.
This marked a rise of 18.3 percent when compared to 2020, which also hit an all-time high, data from the General Administration of Customs showed.
The world’s largest energy consumer imported 7.63 million tonnes of LNG last month, a rise of just 1.6 percent year-on-year. December LNG imports also rose when compared to the previous month.
With this, China officially became the world’s largest LNG importer, overtaking Japan.
Japan is yet to release its official data for December but the country imported about 67.23 million tonnes in the January-November period.
Besides LNG, China’s pipeline imports increased 22.9 percent to 42.43 million tonnes in the January-December period.
Last month, these imports rose 10.8 percent to 4.02 million tonnes, the data shows.