China Utility Aims to Triple Gas Power 2020
State utility China Huadian Corp wants to nearly triple its gas-fired power capacity by 2020, state-run China Energy News reported on Monday, part of China's campaign to use greener fuels and clean up the toxic air in its cities.
Power generation will be one of the key drivers for China's gas demand surge over the next two decades, experts have forecast, as the government tries to curb the country's heavy dependence on dirtier coal.
Huadian Corp aims to install 20 gigawatts of gas-fuelled power stations by 2020, versus 7.3 GW at the end of 2013. Gas use by its plants will grow to 14 billion cubic metres from 3.7 bcm during the same period, China Energy News reported.
Huadian emerged as a rare new shale gas player outside of China's big state energy giants in late 2012, when it was awarded five blocks during Beijing's second shale gas auction, becoming the only utility to drill for shale gas in China.
Earlier this year the utility ventured overseas by acquiring a 5-percent stake in a Canadian natural gas export facility in a tie-up with state energy giant Sinopec Group.
In China, Huadian is planning a liquefied natural gas (LNGLF) (LNG) receiving terminal along the east coast, having lined up with the local government in Jiangmen of southern Guangdong province to build a 3-million-tonne-per-year terminal in 2019, expandable to 6 million tpy by 2023, according to China Energy News.
Energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie said in a research note released on Monday that natural gas will be the main beneficiary of Beijing's environmental policies, with demand seen to reach 335 bcm by 2017, twice that of China's gas demand last year.
From 2020 to 2030, gas demand will see an annualised average growth rate above 4 percent, reaching 655 bcm by 2030 to become the world's second largest gas market after the United States.
The state utility set up in June a specialized unit, Huadian Clean Energy Company, to be responsible for oil and gas development and investment in businesses including building receiving terminals for liquefied natural gas, the paper said.
Reporting by Chen Aizhu
