Chinese April LNG imports soar by over 30 percent putting nation on track to improve on last year’s total

China imported more than 30 percent more liquefied natural gas in April than in the same month last year but shipments were still less than in March 2024 signalling an LNG surge that will increase this year’s overall total.

Chinese imports of LNG in April soared by 31.5 percent to 6.22 million tonnes compared with 4.77MT in April 2023.?

However, the data from the Chinese General Administration of Customs showed that the April 2024 deliveries were lower than the March 2024 imports that amounted to 6.65MT and had jumped year-over-year by 25 percent.

Imports of LNG by China in the January-to-April period now totalled 25.91MT, putting China on course for annual imports of around 77MT, up from last year’s 71.44MT when the nation regained its No. 1 spot as the world’s largest LNG importer.

This was 5.29MT ahead of the Japan’s annual total of 66.15MT, a decline for the Japanese in the year of 8.1 percent compared with 71.99MT in 2022.

Suppliers

Main LNG suppliers to its network of 25 import terminals are Australia, Qatar, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Yamal plant in Arctic Russia.

The China is also the largest recipient of global LNG spot cargoes along with Japan and South Korea.?

China's imports of natural gas by pipeline and as LNG jumped by nearly 21 percent in the first four months of 2024 from January through April, according to earlier data.

The Chinese imported 43MT of natural gas, an increase of 20.7 percent from the January-April period in 2023.

In April 2024 a total of 10.3MT was imported comprising 4.08MT of pipeline gas and the 6.22MT of LNG.

The Chinese receive varying volumes of pipeline gas mainly through links from the former Soviet republics of Central Asia and from Russia via Gazprom's “Power of Siberia” pipeline.

Product exports

The LNG data for April 2024 was released along with that for Chinese exports of petroleum production such as gasoline, diesel and jet fuel.

China's gasoline exports in April fell to the lowest level since July 2015 as domestic use of gasoline increased as the country’s economy began to recover.

April exports of gasoline stood at 400,000 million metric tonnes, down 50.8 percent from April 2023 and?65 percent below March's 1.15MT.

Diesel exports were at 760,000 tonnes in April 2024, down by 46 percent from 1.42MT in March 2024, though higher than in April 2023.

Jet fuel exports in April were 1.59MT, up 90.4 percent from year-ago levels but down from 1.98MT in March.