China’s gas producers ready to boost supply for Beijing’s war on air pollution

China’s natural gas producers are pulling out all stops to boost production, to address acute winter shortages. But the nation’s aspiration to substantially boost its appropriate storage capacity will take many years to accomplish, according to industry executives. 

Much of that production growth in cleaner-burning energy will come from “unconventional” sources, such as coal seam gas and shale gas, whose exploitation was made possible by technological breakthroughs. As these new projects enter mass production, the nation is poised to see exponential growth in unconventional gas output in the next few years.

The surge in demand coincides with Chinese government moves to ratchet up replacing coal with natural gas, to tackle chronic air pollution in major cities. 

“China’s high gas demand growth is sustainable this year, because much of the supply to the industrial sector was curtailed last year, for the sake of ensuring winter residential heating demand was met,” AAG Energy Holding chairman Stephen Zou Xiangdong said in an interview. 

“But this suppressed consumption will come back, once the seasonal peak demand is over.”