OREANDA-NEWS.  July 05, 2013. “Research Report on China’s Natural Gas Industry Chain, 2013-2017” is the new market research reports added to ReportsnReports.com store. This report predicts that the supply volume of natural gas will reach 300 billion cubic meters by 2015 and it is likely to reach 670 billion cubic meters (850 million tons of standard coal) by 2020.

According to conservative estimates, the Chinese government will strengthen unconventional gas import if the exploitation does not go well. Regardless of the quality of domestic natural gas, it is predicted that natural gas will be dominant in primary energy in China by 2020. Meanwhile, the entire industry chain of natural gas will also achieve great development. The development models of natural gas industry will gradually convert from resource-driven model to demand-pulled model at the same time.

In China, natural gas is mainly used as civil fuel and industry fuel with the merits of high calorific value, low cost and pollution. Meanwhile, natural gas is also used as a chemical raw material in the chemical industry. It is mainly applied in producing chemical products like synthetic ammonia and methanol. In recent years, the consumption volume of natural gas grows rapidly in the manufacturing industry, electric power industry and transportation industry.

Natural gas supply mainly comes from domestic production, imported by pipeline and liquefying in China. In 2012, the output volume and import volume of natural gas was 107.7 billion cubic meters and 42.5 billion cubic meters respectively in China, increasing by 6.5% YOY and 13% YOY respectively. Meanwhile, the apparent consumption volume was 147.1 billion cubic meters, increasing by 13% YOY. According to the current technology level, domestic natural gas mainly comes from conventional gas field in China while other unconventional natural gas with great potential is in the stage of the initial exploration, technology research or small-scale production.

In 2012, the import volume of LNG reached 15 million tons. The CAGR was 50% during 2008-2012. The following factors promote the growth: 1.in the past few years, China focused on establishing basic LNG facilities such as LNG receiving stations, which greatly improved the import capacity of LNG; 2. in recent years, besides conventional LNG exporters like Australia, the output volume of some unconventional LNG exporters like Qatar increases every year. It is predicted that the import volume of LNG will keep increasing to meet the market demand in the next few years.

Natural gas industry chain in this report is classified into upstream industry, midstream industry and downstream industry that are responsible for the production, transportation and distribution of natural gas.

Upstream industry: The upstream industry involves the establishment and operation of gas fields, gas receiving stations and natural gas manufacturing plants to excavate, receive or produce natural gas then sell it.

Midstream industry: midstream industry is responsible for establishing and operating long pipeline networks, and transporting natural gas to remote regions, the terminal distributors and terminal users, and getting some transportation fee.

Downstream industry: Downstream industry is responsible for establishing and operating pipeline networks, then distributing natural gas to the terminal users.

The power and operation models of enterprises in the natural gas industry are different from each other, which forms various competition statuses in return.

Generally speaking, upstream natural gas industry is resource-based and its major expansion model is to get high-quality gas resources at low prices; while the downstream industry involves in pipeline networks, so it has obvious characteristics of natural monopoly and public utility. Due to the strictly regulated price, the major expansion model is to construct pipelines and expand users in downstream industry. According to the current development status of natural gas industry in China, many enterprises trend to expand in the industry chain, so their boundaries becomes increasingly vague.

The reserves of conventional natural gas and unconventional natural gas are extremely abundant in China. According to the third national evaluation on petroleum & natural gas resources from China Ministry of Land and

Resources, the total resource volume of natural gas is 108~119 trillion cubic meters, among which the resource volume of unconventional natural gas (73~76 trillion cubic meters) is 1.8~2.1 times that of conventional natural gas (35~43 trillion cubic meters). Meanwhile, the total resource volume of shale gas is 24.5 trillion cubic meters with huge exploration potential, accounting for 33% of the total energy resource volume.

At present, the supply and demand of natural gas is still unbalanced in China. Gas resource is the major factor that restricts the growth of natural gas consumption. Once the resource is sufficient, the consumption volume of natural gas will keep increasing constantly.

As for many enterprises in the natural gas industry, there are many investment opportunities in the coming years.