Shanghai Natural Gas Demand to Spike 50% on Year in Winter

Winter demand for natural gas in Shanghai is expected to rise by 50% year on year to nearly 30 million cubic meters/day (1.06 Bcf/day), Chinese state company PetroChina said Thursday.

The company said the increase is due to rising gas demand, along with a spike in seasonal consumption during the winter months.

PetroChina said gas demand in winter 2011 hit a peak of 20 million cu m/day. It is therefore making efforts to ensure the city has sufficient gas supplies. It expects to send between 8 million-8.5 million cu m/day of gas to Shanghai this winter season. Shanghai receives domestic and Central Asian gas from PetroChina's First and Second West-East pipelines.

The peak winter season in China typically runs from October to February, when gas demand spikes.

Total gas demand in Shanghai for the whole of this year is expected at 6.2 billion cu m (17.8 million cu m/day) and could rise to 10 billion cu m/year by 2015, PetroChina said.

Shanghai has one of the most diverse supply sources of gas in China. Besides both West-East pipelines, it receives LNG from China National Offshore Oil Corp.'s LNG import terminal, Sinopec's giant Puguang gas block and some volumes from CNOOC's offshore fields.

In November, Sinopec said it expected to supply about 20% year on year more gas to the domestic market, with its total gas sales likely to hit 6.86 billion cu m during the current winter months.