BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 5. China’s gas demand in 2023 is forecast to rebound by 5-7 percent, Trend reports citing the latest gas market outlook from the International Energy Agency (IEA).
According to the agency, this growth will be supported by the industrial sector. However, at the same time, the IEA noted that this forecast is highly uncertain.
"2023’s demand increase is fuelled by the expected recovery of economic activity following the easing of COVID-19 lockdown restrictions. Fresh LNG procurement is expected to be sluggish due to the combined effect of the introduction of newly signed long-term LNG purchase contracts, increased domestic production and pipeline gas imports," the report said.
In January 2023 China's gas consumption decreased by 4 percent year-on-year, and increased again by 4 percent year-on-year in February.
"For the first two months of 2023 natural gas demand globally decreased very slightly by 0.1 percent. This drop in demand in the first two months of 2023 was led by industry, with a 9-percent decrease year-on-year, and the power sector, with a 6-percent decrease year-on-year," the report added.
Meanwhile, Asia’s gas consumption experienced an unprecedented slowdown of 2 percent in 2022 due to high LNG prices, COVID-related disruption in China, and mild weather for most of the year in Northeast Asia.
"This trend was confirmed in January 2023 with a decrease of 2 percent year-on-year. Asian gas demand is projected to return to modest growth of around 3 percent in 2023 due to the lifting of China’s zero-Covid policy, an assumption of normalizing weather and the modest recovery of gas consumption in India and emerging Asia after steep declines in 2022," the report added.