China Expected to Double its Natural Gas Consumption Over the Next Five Years

Susan Phillips

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Susan Phillips tells stories about the consequences of political decisions on people's every day lives. She has worked as a reporter for WHYY since 2004. Susan's coverage of the 2008 Presidential election resulted in a story on the front page of the New York Times. In 2010 she traveled to Haiti to cover the earthquake. That same year she produced an award-winning series on Pennsylvania's natural gas rush called "The Shale Game." She received a 2013 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Journalism Award for her work covering natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania. She has also won several Edward R. Murrow awards for her work with StateImpact. In 2013/14 she spent a year at MIT as a Knight Science Journalism Fellow. She has also been a Metcalf Fellow, an MBL Logan Science Journalism Fellow and reported from Marrakech on the 2016 climate talks as an International Reporting Project Fellow. A graduate of Columbia School of Journalism, she earned her Bachelor's degree in International Relations from George Washington University.

June 5, 2012 | 4:00 PM

STR/AFP/GettyImages

A Chinese worker checks the valve of a gas pipe at a natural gas plant in Suining, Sichuan province.

The International Energy Agency says China’s demand for natural gas will continue to grow, making it the third largest importer of gas behind Europe and Asia Oceania. Over the same period, the IEA says the U.S. will become a net exporter of liquefied natural gas. Among the findings are:

A quarter of new gas demand will come from China, another quarter from the Middle East and other Asian countries together, and a fifth from North America.

Low gas prices will result in gas generating almost as much electricity as coal in the United States by 2017.

Global gas trade will expand by 35%, driven by LNG and pipeline gas exports from the FSU region; most of this expansion occurs from 2015 onwards, following a period of further tightening of global gas markets.

Natural gas is the most important commodity with no global market price yet. Divergence among regional gas prices will decline but remain a feature of global gas markets. The emergence of a spot price in Asia would aid regional producers and buyers.

For more on the IEA’s report about natural gas, check out Bloomberg Businessweek’s report.