OREANDA-NEWS. July 31, 2012. In the longer term, China’s appetite for LNG imports could be stymied by the growth of unconventional gas including coal bed methane, shale gas and tight gas. 

But China has a lot of groundwork to do before it sees a US-style boom and experts say they do not expect to see significant shale gas development before 2020, with coal bed methane likely to be come first.  

Progress on Russia-China gas pipeline deals will also play a key role in determining China’s LNG demand in the latter part of this decade. 

In June, Russian state-controlled gas export monopoly Gazprom and China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) failed to agree on the terms of a 30-year supply deal that could be worth up to USD 1 trillion due to a gap in price terms, despite five years of talks.

If the two nations cannot finalise a deal, China would require at least 30 million cubic metres more gas in the latter part of the decade, with LNG set to play a greater role, consultancy Wood Mackenzie said last month. 

Under early terms agreed over five years by negotiators, Russia would deliver 30 billion cubic meters (bcm) per year from fields on the Arctic Yamal peninsula, the same fields which supply Europe, via pipeline through the Altai region to northern China. China would also like to contract an additional 38 bcm from yet untapped fields in East Siberia.  

“On a fundamentals basis, China needs Russian gas in this decade. We can’t see a scenario where the development of unconventional gas in China is so aggressive that it pushes out the need for Russian gas by the end of this decade ,” Woodmac’s Thompson said. 

China’s LNG imports, which hit a record 1.18 million tonnes in July, are expected to reach over 30 million tonnes a year by 2015, and the nation is expected to surpass South Korea as the No. 2 LNG importer by around 2020.

A tax rebate on natural gas imports may accelerate China’s purchases of liquefied natural gas, but only marginally given high prices for spot supplies and the nation’s policy of using long-term contracts.