Development situation and prospect of natural gas in China

China's supply and demand of natural gas continue to increase

Natural gas reserves are growing at their peak, and the proportion of unconventional resources is increasing. China's natural gas resources are 172 trillion cubic meters, the resource base is strong, but the proved degree is low, and the overall exploration is in the early and middle period. Since 2000, China's natural gas reserves have maintained peak growth, with an average annual increase of 732.8 billion cubic meters of proven natural gas reserves. By the end of 2021, China had submitted a total of 17.05 trillion cubic meters of proved reserves, of which conventional gas accounted for 53%, tight gas accounted for 32%, shale gas accounted for 11%, and coalbed gas accounted for 4%. The new proved reserves are large, but mainly low-grade reserves such as unconventional and deep deposits.

Natural gas production has increased rapidly, and Sulige has entered the ranks of the world's largest gas fields. Since 2000, China's natural gas development has entered a period of rapid development, with an average annual growth rate of about 10%, reaching more than 220 billion cubic meters in 2022. At present, it has built four natural gas production bases in Ordos, Tarim, Sichuan and Haihai. China's oil and gas output rose from 18.3 billion cubic meters in 2000 to 145.3 billion cubic meters in 2022, accounting for 66.05% of the country's natural gas output. At present, CNPC has built a 50 billion cubic meter super gas zone - Changqing gas zone and two more than 30 billion cubic meter atmospheric zones - Southwest, Tarim gas zone. In 2022, the output of Changqing Sulige gas field will reach 30.56 billion cubic meters, becoming the only super gas field in China with an annual output of more than 30 billion cubic meters, and entering the ranks of the world's top ten super large gas fields.

Natural gas consumption continued to flourish, and its dependence on foreign countries was effectively controlled. In 2018, China produced 160.1 billion cubic meters of natural gas, its apparent consumption was 280.3 billion cubic meters, and its dependence on foreign natural gas was 45.3 percent. In 2022, China's natural gas production is 220 billion cubic meters, the apparent consumption is 366.3 billion cubic meters, and the external dependence of natural gas is less than 41%. Four years, in the case of natural gas consumption increased by 86 billion cubic meters, foreign dependence decreased by more than 4%, mainly due to the rapid growth of domestic natural gas production in recent years. Over the past four years, the net increase of domestic natural gas was 60 billion cubic meters, and the decline in external dependence was beyond most experts' forecasts.

In the future, China's policy of increasing domestic storage and production will not change, vigorously develop the natural gas industry, take natural gas as a bridge to achieve green transformation, and promote the development of unconventional natural gas will become the main force for increasing storage and production.

The development of natural gas promotes the transformation of energy structure. Compared with the world level, the proportion of natural gas in primary energy consumption in China is low, but the particularity of energy structure determines that the proportion of natural gas consumption in China is not comparable with that of foreign countries. The proportion of natural gas in primary energy consumption increased from 4% in 2010 to 8.9% in 2021, more than doubling in 10 years, and absolute consumption increased from 95.8 billion cubic meters to 372.6 billion cubic meters, an increase of nearly four times.

Prospect of natural gas development in China

At present, China has formed different types of gas reservoir characteristic development technology, according to the "discovery of a class, research a class, mature supporting a class of ideas, development technology system gradually formed.

Exploration potential analysis

For conventional gas and tight gas, the remaining resources are mainly distributed in the six fields of lithostratigraphy, Marine carbonate rocks, foreland and complex structure-lithology, and the proved rate of each field is low, and the fields of lithostratigraphy, Marine carbonate rocks and foreland are at the peak of reserve growth. At present, the evaluation of the realistic scale of eight additional storage areas, the resource potential of 30 trillion cubic meters, with 8 trillion to 10 trillion cubic meters of proven potential. The cumulative discovery rate in 2021 is 20%, which is expected to increase to 40% in 2035 and more than 50% in 2060.

There are 3 total areas of shale gas, 3 new potential storage areas have been discovered, the resource potential is more than 35 trillion cubic meters, and the future has 8 trillion to 9 trillion cubic meters of proved geological reserves potential.

CBM is in the early stage of exploration, with large amount of remaining resources and unbalanced distribution. There are 2 actual additional storage areas and 3 potential additional storage areas, with proven geological reserves potential of 500 billion to 750 billion cubic meters in the future. Ordos deep coalbed methane will show a broad development prospect in the future.