China's natural gas production in the second quarter of 2024 reached 60.35 billion cubic meters, an increase of 7.42% year-on-year, which was 2.44 percentage points higher than the second quarter of 2023, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). The cumulative natural gas production in the first half stood at 123.61 billion cubic meters, up 6.16% year-on-year.
Source: OilChem
The involvement of spot natural gas gave producers flexibility in pricing and resource allocation, which spurred the production enthusiasm of oil giants, thus propelling an increase in the natural gas production.
Particularly, Sinopec Southwest Oil and Gas Company produced 5.05 billion cubic meters of natural gas in the first half, a year-on-year increase of 12.80%; Yanchang Oilfield Company achieved its natural gas target for the first half with a total production of 4.93 billion cubic meters; And PetroChina Coalbed Methane Company's natural gas production stood at 1.88 billion cubic meters, rising 21.1% year-on-year.
On the other hand, OilChem expects that the natural gas apparent consumption in the second quarter would be 106.35 billion cubic meters, a year-on-year increase of 8.80%, down by 2.98 percentage points compared to the second quarter of 2023. The cumulative apparent consumption in the first half is estimated to have reached 214.61 billion cubic meters, up 9.93% year-on-year. The slowdown in the consumption growth is mainly due to the rapid development of new energy industry.
Source: OilChem
Moreover, the slowdown in macroeconomic growth has also weighed down the natural gas consumption growth. The GDP for the second quarter was CNY 32,053.70 billion, a year-on-year increase of 4.70%, down 0.60 percentage points compared to the first quarter. The natural gas consumption per unit of GDP in the second quarter was 4.03 tonnes of standard coal, a year-on-year increase of 4.95%, down 2.04 percentage points compared to the first quarter. Therefore, the slowdown in economic growth curbed the demand for industrial production and commercial activities, thereby affecting the growth of natural gas consumption.
Written by Sunny Fang, fss@oilchem.net
Edited by Aggie Hu, huchenying@mysteel.com