(Photo/Xinhua)

China eyes deeper cooperation on liquefied natural gas (LNG) with global market to meet the huge demand of domestic energy and eco-friendly development, the nation’s largest offshore oil and gas producer said.

Compared to pipeline gas, LNG has gradually become the most active form of natural gas supply due to its convenient transportation, flexibility, and efficiency. With the improvement of environmental protection standards, LNG is expected to be widely used in vehicles and ships.

The Chinese government has advocated coal-to-gas transition domestically, which enlarges the demand of natural gas, Yang Hua, the chairman of China National Offshore Oil Corp (CNOOC), said on Tuesday during at the 19th International Conference and Exhibition on Liquefied Natural Gas in Shanghai.

Yang also pointed out that spring is around the corner for the global LNG industry, especially in the era of digital technology. Thanks to the reduced cost of transportation and utilization, the scale of global LNG trade is expected to exceed 500 billion cubic meters by 2023, a 30 percentage increase compared to 2017.

Since 2017, China has become the second largest import country of LNG. Over 230 million tons of LNG has been imported to date, making China an important contributor in the global LNG industry’s development and prosperity. That number is expected to increase in the following years, as China is set to expand its proportion to 10 percentage in the country’s overall energy consumption by 2020, news portal ThePaper reported.

However, some challenges may impede its pace. For example, the price of LNG fluctuates under the influence of the global market and the scale of its utilization is still limited by infrastructure in Asian countries, observers said.

Yang hopes Asian countries will leverage the geographical advantage of being the world’s largest LNG import region and establish a regional natural gas market price index based on common interests. Through a coordination mechanism, Asian countries can optimize regional allocation of LNG resources and enhance its procurement pricing discourse rights.