China’s natural gas imports, including pipeline gas and LNG, rose by 18.5 percent in July compared to the same month last year, according to customs data.
Natural gas imports during the last month reached 10.30 million tonnes, the data from the General Administration of Customs shows.
This compares to 8.69 million tonnes in the same month last year and 10.38 million tonnes in the prior month.
Moreover, the country’s gas imports rose by 7.6 percent year-on-year to 66.87 million tonnes in January-July.
China paid about $36.9 billion for gas imports in this period, a rise of 1.1 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 sixth month in a row in June, and the country imported 5.96 million tonnes in June, a rise of 24.4 percent year-on-year.
The country imported 33.44 million tonnes of LNG during January-June, up by 7.2 percent compared to the same period last year, overtaking Japan as the world’s largest LNG importer during the first six months of this year.