Under the big goal of carbon neutrality, why does our country still develop natural gas?

4. Industrial sector

Natural gas is widely used in the industrial field, and China encourages "coal to gas" in the industrial field, limiting the development of natural gas chemical industry. Natural gas is mainly used in industrial kilns in metallurgy, ceramics, glass processing, food processing, printing and dyeing, paper and other industries, as well as industrial boilers for the production of steam or hot water, to replace coal, gas and petroleum products. Natural gas pure and few impurities, easy to control the temperature and ensure product quality; Natural gas storage and transportation is convenient, without desulfurization and waste treatment and other processes, significantly reducing equipment maintenance, personnel, vehicles and environmental protection related costs. Industrial natural gas consumption is growing rapidly, from 1.95×1010 m3 in 2010 to 1.29×1011 m3 in 2020.

With the continuous promotion of the "coal to gas" policy and the implementation of stricter environmental protection policies, the consumption of natural gas in the industrial fuel field will gradually increase. In the chemical industry, natural gas is mainly used for the production of nitrogen fertilizer (synthetic ammonia) and methanol, followed by the production of acetylene, hydrocyanic acid, formaldehyde, dichloromethane, carbon tetrachloride, carbon disulfide, nitromethane, carbon black and helium extraction. At present, China's natural gas chemical industry does not have a competitive advantage, and the policy of limiting chemical gas use is adopted, so the scale of chemical gas use remains stable, and the natural gas consumption in 2020 is about 3.0×1010 m3.