"The Yangtze River has a population of 290 million, while experiencing annual energy demand growth of 15% and GDP increase of 9% every year," Yao said at the World LNG Series, Asia Pacific Summit.
He said that China's north and northeastern areas are supplied by natural gas pipelines from the west, and the country's southern regions make use of LNG that is brought in via LNG terminals at Guangdong and Fujian located along the country's southern coast.
This had resulted in a supply gap in central China which could be met through the Yangtze LNG project, Yao said.
The Guangdong LNG regasification terminal, China's first, has a capacity of 6.7 million mt/year, while the Fujian terminal has a capacity of 2.6 million mt/year. A third terminal in Shanghai can import 3 million mt/year.
China's second West-East gas pipeline began transporting gas from Turkmenistan to the western Chinese city of Zhong Wei in Gansu province at the end of last year. The pipeline will transport gas from China's central Asian neighbor Turkmenistan, under a 30-year contract for 30 billion cubic
meters/year.
"FSRUs along the Yangtze river could be linked with larger LNG vessels via smaller mobile carriers, and coastal receiving terminals with capacities of 250,000-1 million mt/year could be built at cities such as Wuhan, Huangshi and Jiujing," Yao said.
CPPEC would be involved in the Yangtze river LNG project by supplying FSRUs, technology and the construction of coastal LNG terminals, through its subsidiary, Enertech, Yao told Platts on the sidelines.
"The FSRUs will have a capacity of 5,000-10,000 mt of LNG each and will transport LNG from China's larger LNG terminals along the sea," Yao said, adding that the Yangtze river region was currently being supplied with natural gas from Sichuan province.
"The Yangtze river LNG project is currently in the planning stage, with a combination of private sector companies and the six provincial governments of Hubei, Jiangxi, Jiangsu, Anhui, Hunan and Shanghai, which lie along the river, taking part" Yao said. He declined to reveal when the project would be implemented.
RAPID URBANISATION TO DRIVE LNG USE IN CHINA
"In China, LNG use will grow at 18% per year for the next 15 years," Yao said, adding that this would be driven primarily by rapid urbanization in the country.
He said that city gas usage of LNG would increase the most followed by power generation demand by 2020, while industrial and chemical requirements would go down.
Yao said that 20 more LNG import terminals were being planned for China, on top of the seven that are in operation or under construction.
China Chemical Weekly: http://news.chemnet.com/en/detail-1411716.html
