(1) China's natural gas reserves
According to the BP World Energy Statistical Yearbook (2022), from 2011 to 2020, China's proven natural gas reserves have maintained steady growth, reaching 29,289 in 20119.7 billion cubic meters, which increased to 83,985 in 20205 billion cubic meters, despite this, China's proven natural gas reserves account for a low proportion of the world, only 45%。The increase of natural gas reserves in China is mainly due to the discovery of a large number of large and medium-sized gas fields, which are mainly located in the Tarim Basin, Ordos Basin, Sichuan Basin, Qaidam Basin, Junggar Basin in the western part of the land, Songliao in the east, and the East China Sea and Bohai Sea in the eastern coastal waters. According to the China Natural Gas Development Report (2022), in 2021, the country added 1,628.4 billion cubic meters of proven geological reserves of natural gas, of which 805.1 billion cubic meters, 745.4 billion cubic meters and 77.9 billion cubic meters of new proven geological reserves of conventional gas (including tight gas), shale gas and coalbed methane reached 805.1 billion cubic meters, 745.4 billion cubic meters and 77.9 billion cubic meters, respectively. Figure 1 China's proven natural gas reserves (trillion cubic meters) from 2011 to 2020
Data**: bp World Energy Statistical Yearbook (2022).
(2) China's natural gas production and consumption
As one of the important clean energy sources in China and even in the world, natural gas has been widely used in the daily life of urban residents, and will continue to maintain a growth trend in the future. On September 22, 2020, China** proposed at the 75th session of the United Nations General Assembly that it would strive to peak carbon dioxide emissions before 2030 and achieve "carbon neutrality" before 2060. Fossil energy emissions are an important part of China's carbon dioxide emissions, in order to achieve the goal of "carbon neutrality", the growth space of fossil energy will undoubtedly be limited, natural gas is one of the fossil energy with the lowest carbon emission intensity, which is not only the most realistic choice to replace coal and achieve "low-carbonization", but also the "lifelong companion" of renewable energy, which will play a key role in the realization of the "carbon neutrality" goal. According to the China Energy Big Data Report (2022), China's natural gas consumption has been increasing in the past decade, from 149.7 billion cubic meters** to 372.6 billion cubic meters from 2012 to 2021, with a compound annual growth rate of 1066%。At the same time, the proportion of natural gas in China's energy consumption has gradually risen, from 48% to 89%。It is estimated that China's natural gas consumption will reach 430 billion to 450 billion cubic meters by 2025 and 550 billion to 600 billion cubic meters by 2030, and there is still a lot of room for growth in the domestic natural gas market in the future. Figure 2 China's natural gas consumption and its proportion in total energy consumption from 2012 to 2021
Data**: China Energy Big Data Report (2022) From the perspective of natural gas consumption structure, industrial gas and urban gas are the two main pillars of China's natural gas consumption, accounting for more than 70% of the total consumption. Specifically, due to factors such as the promotion of urbanization and the implementation of "coal-to-gas", industrial gas consumption increased by 14% year-on-year in 20214%, accounting for 40% of total natural gas consumption;Gas consumption for power generation increased by 13 percent year-on-year4%, accounting for 18%;City gas increased by 10 percent year-on-year5%, accounting for 32%;The gas consumption of chemical fertilizers increased by 5% year-on-year8%, accounting for 10%. Figure 3 Proportion of China's natural gas consumption structure in 2021
Data**: China Natural Gas Development Report (2022) In 2021, China's natural gas production reached 2,075800 million cubic meters, a year-on-year increase of 78%, which is the first time that China's natural gas production has exceeded 200 billion cubic meters, and it is also the fifth consecutive year that the production has increased by more than 10 billion cubic meters. Among them, the output of shale gas was 23 billion cubic meters, and the utilization of coalbed methane was 7.7 billion cubic meters, continuing to maintain a good growth momentum. In addition, in 2021, China imported 121.36 million tons of natural gas (about 167.5 billion cubic meters), a year-on-year increase of 199%, of which LNG imports were 78.93 million tons, a year-on-year increase of 183%, and the import volume of pipeline gas was 42.43 million tons, a year-on-year increase of 229%。Figure 4 China's natural gas production and imports from 2012 to 2021 (100 million cubic meters).
Data**: China Energy Big Data Report (2022).
(3) The construction of natural gas pipelines in China
With the centralized implementation of trunk pipeline interconnection from 2018 to 2020, key areas such as Tianjin, Guangdong, Guangxi, and Zhejiang have broken through bottlenecks, basically realizing that trunk pipelines "should be connected", gas source islands "should be connected", and the skeleton of "one national network" for natural gas has been initially formed. In addition, taking into account the "dual carbon" goal and the promotion factors of energy transition-related policies, the construction of China's natural gas production, supply, storage and marketing system has accelerated, and in the next few years, with the construction of natural gas trunk pipelines and coastal LNG receiving stations supporting export pipelines, the mileage of gas pipelines will maintain a rapid growth trend. From 2015 to 2021, the mileage of natural gas pipelines in China has increased year by year, and by the end of 2021, the cumulative mileage of natural gas pipelines built in China was 890,000 kilometers, according to the national "Medium and Long-term Oil and Gas Pipeline Network Plan", during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, China's cumulative mileage of natural gas pipelines will reach 1630,000 kilometers, it is expected that by 2030, the national oil and gas pipeline network infrastructure will be relatively perfect, the universal service capacity will be further improved, and the utilization of natural gas will gradually cover small cities, suburbs, towns and rural areas, and a modern oil and gas pipeline network system will be basically completed. Figure 5 Total length of natural gas pipelines in China from 2015 to 2025 (10,000 km).
Data**: China Energy Big Data Report, Medium and Long-term Oil and Gas Pipeline Network Planning