Insight
China gas and power month in brief-December: what is causing gas supply crunches?
*Please note that this report only includes an Excel data file if this is indicated in "What's included" below
Report summary
Right after the winter heating season began, gas shortages widely appeared. These supply crunches highlight the lack of co-ordination between supply and demand growth. They also expose some long-lasting problems such as insufficient storage capacity. The situation wasn't helped by Central Asia-China gas flows, which disappointed again. LNG stood out as the most flexible source to respond to demand, but imports were constrained by terminal capacity. In an extreme case, the government had to resort to using coal. Nevertheless, the government's determination to roll out clean winter heating hasn't changed. More balanced and gradual approaches have been proposed. On the power side, the shift to a cleaner generation mix is continuing, despite further ramping down of subsidies for renewables.
Table of contents
- Executive summary
-
Market
- Supply shortage worsens as it spreads to central and southern China
- Power demand faces uncertainties but renewables speed up
-
Policy
- China launches national carbon market
- NDRC cuts solar power feed-in tariffs
- China maps out five-year winter clean heating plan for the north
-
Corporate
- Central Asia-China gas flows fail to respond
-
Smog watch
- Beijing hits 2017 air quality target
Tables and charts
This report includes the following images and tables:
-
Monthly gas demand, bcmMonthly LNG imports, MtMonthly power demand, TwhChina gas imports from Central AsiaBeijing AQI
What's included
This report contains:
