The supply of natural gas is tight, and the coordinated development of comprehensive measures will solve the problem of gas source. At present, China is encouraging all localities to realize the clean development of winter heating in the north by replacing coal with gas. Therefore, the demand for natural gas has increased greatly in winter in recent years, and the situation of tight natural gas supply often occurs.
This supply problem, on the one hand, is due to the rapid increase in demand, and more importantly, in the process of market development, the corresponding peak shaving facilities and measures have not been established through different periods of market demand. For example, pipeline gas, gas source of gas storage, import of liquefied natural gas, etc. have not played their due peak shaving role in long-term and short-term supply.
At present, PetroChina and other major oil and gas enterprises are taking comprehensive measures to solve the problem of gas source through coordinated development, regulate the peak of industrial and civil gas by market mechanism, and actively fulfill social responsibilities.
Analysis of the current development situation of the global LNG market, and the imbalance between supply and demand will intensify in the future
According to the statistical data of the analysis report on market prospect and investment strategic planning of LNG Industry released by the forward looking Industry Research Institute, on the one hand, Asian demand leads the global LNG trade market, and nearly three quarters of import demand comes from Asian countries and regions. On the other hand, a new round of LNG supply growth may have come. The global LNG liquefaction capacity has increased by 13% over 2016 to 349 million tons per year, and there are still projects under construction that will average 100 million tons in recent years. According to the analysis of the current development situation in 2017, the global LNG market presents a situation of "flourishing production and marketing". However, in the medium and long term, the global LNG market has major constraints on both the demand side and the supply side, and the uncertainty of the future supply-demand balance development is increasing.
Analysis of LNG market demand in China
First of all, China's demand growth is an important factor to drive the global LNG market share to increase significantly in 2017, but it has obvious policy constraints. Especially under the background of "gas shortage" in the whole northern region in the winter of 2017, the central and local governments at all levels will be more cautious in implementing "coal to gas" and other activities in the future, which will make the LNG demand growth tend to be gentle.
In addition, compared with domestic gas and imported pipeline gas, China's imported LNG still has disadvantages such as high cost and poor supply stability. With the commissioning of the China Russia east natural gas pipeline and the stable increase of the imported gas volume of the Central Asia pipeline, the proportion of LNG in China's imported natural gas may fall again, which is not conducive to driving the continuous increase of global LNG market demand. Second, although the LNG import demand of emerging markets in Asia, including Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan and Bangladesh, is strong in 2017 and in a certain period in the future, the LNG import volume of these countries is still highly sensitive to their market prices. Not only do consumers have limited ability to bear the price of natural gas, but also the government has limited ability to subsidize the industry and the economy as a whole.
Finally, the import growth of Japan and South Korea, the two traditional LNG importers in Asia, may slow down significantly in the future. In Japan, first, the natural gas downstream market is basically mature, the power intensity is low and the energy efficiency continues to improve, which makes it difficult for the LNG demand to increase significantly; Second, with the continued restart of the country's nuclear power generators, Japan's demand for natural gas in power generation will continue to decrease in the future. In South Korea, Moon Jae-in's government actively embarked on "abandoning nuclear power and coal", and the natural gas demand target continued to rise. However, due to the large installed capacity of coal and nuclear power plants that have been approved in advance, with a total capacity of 13.9 GW, it is difficult for South Korea's natural gas demand to increase significantly in the future.
Analysis of global LNG market supply
On the one hand, at present, the global market has a considerable number of LNG liquefaction capacity under construction and large-scale LNG planning and construction projects. Among them, the liquefaction capacity of LNG projects under construction in Australia is about 26.6 million tons per year; In addition to the LNG projects under construction in the United States, there are more than 60 million tons of projects approved and licensed; The second and third production lines of Yamal project in Russia are under intensive construction, and a number of LNG projects such as port LNG and visotsk LNG are actively planned. If the above projects can be completed and put into operation as planned, it will bring huge supply capacity to the global LNG market.
On the other hand, due to the continuous fluctuation of international oil prices, the loose market supply and demand, and the sharp narrowing of profit space, the number of new LNG projects to implement the final investment decision has decreased significantly in recent years. From 2011 to 2015, an average of 25 million tons of new projects in the world implemented the final investment decision every year, which was reduced to 6 million tons in 2016 and further halved to 3 million tons in 2017. If this trend dominates the market, the growth of global LNG supply will start to slow down significantly from 2020 to 2025, or the global LNG market will rebalance and turn into a state of supply exceeding demand.
China's LNG industry has broad prospects for development
The government has issued the opinions on accelerating the utilization of natural gas, the new version of the guiding opinions on the utilization of natural gas and other documents to strive to cultivate natural gas into the main energy. According to the national 13th five year plan for natural gas development and other documents, LNG will become an important source of China's natural gas consumption market. Therefore, how to adapt to the global LNG market with increasing uncertainty on both sides of supply and demand and complex development environment in the future is of great significance to ensure the healthy development of China's LNG and even natural gas industry.
China's LNG development should be based on the general idea of "opening up sources and reducing expenditure", and take effective countermeasures from both internal and external dimensions.
From the "internal" perspective, first of all, in terms of protecting the domestic consumption market, the state should continue to strengthen the promotion of the efficient and orderly development of natural gas in China, continue to optimize the policies and measures to ensure stable market supply and demand, including the interconnection of infrastructure between different gas sources, the strict implementation of third-party access Establish the peak and valley prices of natural gas in China, and encourage and strengthen the diversification of natural gas market operators, so as to create new development opportunities in the future by further straightening out the business environment of the whole industry chain of China's imported LNG business.
Secondly, in terms of expanding the supply of domestic LNG resources, first, it is necessary to improve the exit mechanism of upstream natural gas exploration and development and the diversified guidance mechanism of participants; Second, we should encourage technological breakthroughs in the development of complex and difficult natural gas resources such as shale gas and tight gas; Third, it is necessary to establish a national natural gas exploration risk fund.
Thirdly, it is necessary to continuously improve the efficiency of domestic LNG consumption, promote the application mode of "cold, heat and electricity" triple supply of LNG, and strengthen the comprehensive utilization capacity of LNG resources.
From the perspective of "external", first, we should continue to strengthen the diversification of LNG import sources, make use of the existing consumption market, and attract more LNG producing countries to participate in China's LNG import cooperation.
Second, we should make full use of the "buyer's market" advantage that may appear in the global market in the next few years, exchange the market size for bargaining power, and reduce import costs to the maximum extent; In particular, we should explore multilateral cooperation among LNG importing countries in the East Asia Southeast Asia region, establish a purchasing alliance, and change "Asian premium" into "Asian discount".
Third, we should continue to strengthen the construction of supporting infrastructure related to imported LNG. First, we should further expand the acceptance capacity of imported LNG in China; Second, it is necessary to further optimize the construction layout of China's imported LNG terminal; Third, it is necessary to further strengthen the construction of supporting gas storage and export pipeline network for imported LNG; 4、 It is necessary to strengthen the acquisition of upstream natural gas resources by Chinese oil enterprises in the Belt and Road and other countries, especially the acquisition of upstream natural gas assets supporting LNG projects, and reduce the risk of participating in overseas operations by means of cooperation with international oil companies.
