China Sees 9.1% Jump in Natural Gas Output for First Nine Months of 2017

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources China (Beijing, China)--Driven by the booming demand for clean energy, China's natural gas production has maintained rapid growth since the beginning of this year. For January through September, natural gas output reached 108.72 billion cubic meters, an increase of 9.1% over the same nine months in 2016, the National Bureau of Statistics announced on Thursday.

For September, China's natural gas output was 11.15 billion cubic meters, an increase of 10.7% over September 2016. Last month's output was 1 percentage point lower than output in August this year.

Meanwhile, crude oil output by China has dropped due to low international prices. For the period of January through September, crude output totaled 144.28 million metric tons, down 4.4% from the same nine months of 2016. For September, crude oil output fell 2.9% to 15.53 million metric tons from the same month in 2016.

However, refined products output has risen, driven by newly commissioned refineries and higher prices. China's refining facilities processed 420 million metric tons of crude oil during the first nine months of this year, an increase of 4.7% over the same period in 2016.

For September, refinery throughput increased 12.7% over the same month in 2016, which was 6.2 percentage points more than the growth numbers for August this year. Daily volume averaged 1.645 million metric tons in September, an 8.2% increase from August. Last month's output of gasoline, kerosene and diesel rose 10.4%, 12.3% and 7.1%, respectively, over the output in August.

Growth in imports and exports showed signs of slowing. For September, China imported 5.94 million metric tons of natural gas, a 3.7% increase over the same month in 2017, but down by 66.5 percentage points from August this year. Crude oil imports last month totaled 37.01 million metric tons, an 11.9% increase from September 2016, and 8.5 percentage points higher than in August this year.

From January through September 2017, natural gas imports totaled 42.46 million metric tons, a jump of 25.5% year over year, and crude oil imports reached 320 million metric tons, an increase of 12.2% year over year, which was of the same level compared with that in the first eight months 2017.

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