Cheniere Energy expects China gas demand to rise more than 50% by 2040

By Gabrielle Ng and Emily Chow

(Reuters) – Cheniere Energy (NYSE:) expects China gas demand to grow to more than 600 billion cubic meters (bcm) by 2040 from 400 bcm today, a company executive said at the Asia Gas Markets conference on Tuesday.

“There’s no doubt that gas demand growth in China, in absolute terms, is substantially driven by energy demand, policies like coal-to-gas-switch as well as a huge infrastructure build-up,” said Yingying Zhou, director LNG origination at Cheniere.

China will be the world’s first 100-million-ton LNG market very soon, with LNG accounting for about 25%-30% of China’s overall gas demand mix, Zhou added.

China is the world’s largest importer of LNG. It imported 71.19 million tons of LNG last year, according to the country’s customs data.