Green drives hit gas supplies
Print Edition
Gas shortages are expected to be worse this winter, as anti-pollution drives in many cities have become “guzzlers” of the scarce resource.
On Tuesday, China’s top natural gas producer, PetroChina, cut supplies to Cangzhou Dahua Group Co, a major chemical fertilizer maker in north China’s Hebei Province.
Suspension of gas supplies to industrial users has been a solution for years to ensure residential users and public transportation are not left short.
However, suppliers have continued to provide gas to enterprise users to benefit economically, despite government regulations.
Wang Xiaokun, an analyst with chem99.com, a Shandong-based commodity information platform, said the output of petrochemical enterprises in China’s central and northwest provinces had been or will be affected by diminishing gas supplies.
A gas supply coordination meeting held in October by the National Development and Reform Commission, China’s top economic planner, said cities such as Beijing and Urumqi had started to see tensions in gas supplies during consumption off-season for the first time.
Two notices issued by the NDRC recently banned construction of gas-fired power plants that have not secured full gas supplies.
Even with a planned supply of 3.385 billion cubic meters this winter, east China’s Shandong Province will still fall short by 421 million cubic meters, according to its housing and urban-rural development department.
“Residents living in cities such as Jinan and Qingdao, where the ‘coal-to-gas’ replacement initiative has been widely implemented, are likely to bear the brunt of gas supply shortage, which is estimated to be up to 500,000 cubic meters daily,” an official said.
The NDRC said gas demand in the first three quarters of this year increased by 13.5 percent, while supply saw a less impressive 9.2 percent increase.
“China’s gas imports accounted for 32 percent of domestic consumption, 2 percentage points above the 30 percent international energy warning line,” said Ma Ji, an industrial analyst.
Central heating, which was switched on in early November, is one of the major reasons for the surge in demand. But in cities south of the Yangtze River, where there is no central heating system, gas is also in short supply.
Li Kejun, a taxi driver in Hefei, capital of east China’s Anhui Province, complains about the difficulty of refilling his natural gas car in wintertime. Car heating consumes more gas, which is why Li needs to fill up twice a day.
Nearly 9,000 natural gas taxis are running in the city every day, in addition to over 10,000 private cars that have been converted from gasoline to natural gas.
In the northern city of Taiyuan, capital of Shanxi Province, gas stations can provide 275,000 cubic meters of gas daily, with another 30,000 cubic meters still needed if the city is to meet the needs of its buses and taxis.
A lack of infrastructure is another reason for the aggravated gas shortage.
The Shandong provincial government said the emergency storage capacity of natural gas is less than 20 million cubic meters with only about 100 emergency supply facilities, which means gas supplies to most home users have to be cut whenever there is a supply failure.
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