Asian Gas Prices Rising by 80%

The Director of U.S. Cambridge Energy Research Associates Beijing Office John Harris recently predicted that because of majority of new projects tardiness and Indonesia, Egypt and other countries' export restrictions, the Asian natural gas prices may grow up by 80 percent this year.

According to China Customs statistics, China the imports price of liquid natural gas (LNG) is 14.35 U.S. dollars / MBtu in June. Harris believes that to this winter, the northern hemisphere liquid natural gas (LNG) prices are likely to rise 25 U.S. dollars / MBtu.

It is learnt that at present in Russia, Yemen and Indonesia to build several liquid natural gas (LNG) plant. The total production capacity is about 24 million tons, the original plan is putting them into operation in the second half of this year, but have been postponed until next year.

Japan's Ministry of Finance's data showed that the first half of this year, Japan imported 34.67 million tons of liquid natural gas (LNG), up 6.2 percent. South Korea has also increased import of liquid natural gas (LNG) this year, 3.5 percent.

These factors will cause tight supply of liquid natural gas (LNG) international market. Some experts have estimated that the world's shortage of liquid natural gas (LNG) will continue until 2013.

In April, U.S. Citi Group analyst James Neil had expected that from now to 2015, the consumption of global liquid natural gas (LNG) will be grow up with 10 percent at an annual rate. It is five times than the oil consumption.

Originally Posted: China Business Daily
Author: Angulo Fu