China Gas Production To Skyrocket: IEA

Annual production of natural gas in China will rise 51% by 2024 from 2018 levels, a senior official with the International Energy Agency (IEA) told China’s Xinhua news service.

China’s domestic natural gas output will reach 242 bcm in 2024, up 82 bcm from the 160 bcm output in 2018, said Peter Fraser, head of IEA’s division on gas, coal and power markets. Citing IEA’s recent medium-term report Gas 2019, Fraser said the increase will come from both conventional and unconventional gas.

“We see much increased activity on exploration and production in last year,” said Fraser. “We just think that level of production increases possible.”

China produced 161 bcm of natural gas in 2018, up 7.5% year on year, according to China’s National Bureau of Statistics.

Fraser said China’s recent steps to liberalize exploration and development of oil and gas industry would certainly be beneficial to increasing production in China. Starting last month, the country has allowed foreign companies to engage in exploration and development of oil and gas in China independently following the removal of approval requirement of overall development plan with Sino-foreign oil and gas projects in February 2019.