China’s imports of liquefied natural gas are set to decline for the 13th month in a row in November amid higher domestic production and pipeline imports, Bloomberg has reported, citing Kpler data.
The country’s November total in imports is seen at 5.81 million tons, which would be a 5.5% decline from a year ago, Kpler said. The decline would be significantly smaller than the ones registered for the previous two months, both of which were at over 10% on the year.
Last year, China saw a surge in LNG and pipeline gas imports as it sought to fill its storage caverns. Over just the first half of the year, total natural gas imports saw an annual increase of 14.3%, reaching 64.65 million tons. After the rush to fill storage, imports of natural gas weakened as facilities were full at capacity.
This year, LNG demand has softened considerably as Chinese natural gas production continued to expand in line with plans to boost reliance on domestic energy commodity supply. Earlier in the year, domestic gas production hit an all-time high, bringing LNG imports to the lowest in six years, down by 19% on the year over the first seven months of 2025. Since then, the decline has continued.
President Donald Trump’s tariff offensive against Beijing also affected demand, as the latter retaliated with an import tariff on U.S. energy, which led to a slump in shipments to zero for LNG and crude oil.
Meanwhile, China has been importing more natural gas from Russia via the Power of Siberia pipeline. The two countries finalized talks in September on an expansion of the pipeline that would see its capacity rise to over 100 billion cu m annually—almost equal to the capacity of the twin Nord Stream pipelines that were built to export gas to Germany.
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
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