More opportunities for gas to grow: China gas and power month in brief December 2016

Although the weather was milder than expected, China saw robust gas and power demand growth in November. Gas demand was up around 7% and LNG imports grew by 28% year-on-year from January to November. Concerns around waves of thick smog became epidemic, prompting rollouts of reforms in the gas and power sectors. The National Energy Administration urged local governments to spur natural gas demand, while Jiangsu unveiled an ambitious gas power build plan, and a nationwide power market transaction code was also released. NOCs moved in response to the government push. Sinopec sold a 50% stake in the Sichuan-East pipeline to China Life and SDIC, and PetroChina offered third-party access to its pipelines to Guanghui Energy. We are expecting more to come in 2017.