Bearish demand forecasts dominate China’s winter gas outlook

Economic headwinds and little sign of colder weather suggest continuing weakness

China’s gas demand—which has underpinned global LNG trade growth for the past dozen years—is on track to potentially shrink this year for the first time in at least two decades amid a sharp economic downturn. But the country’s biggest energy suppliers differ on the severity of the contraction and how long it will last. Company officials within Petrochina and Cnooc—China’s largest onshore and offshore gas producers respectively—have predicted at industry events in November that 2022 Chinese gas demand will at best grow at a rate sharply slower than historic levels, if not decline on an annual basis. Official statistics have pegged China’s apparent gas consumption at 269.48bn m³ in the first n