China Is About to Do for Global Gas Demand What It Did for Oil
- Nation’s demand seen surpassing U.S. level after 2040
- Environmental concerns, economic growth drive push toward gas
A man walks past the Shahamah liquefied natural gas (LNG) tanker sitting berthed at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s (Tepco) Futtsu gas-fired thermal power plant in Futtsu Chiba Prefecture, Japan, on Thursday, Jan. 21, 2016. The Ministry of Finance is scheduled to release Japan's fuel trading data on Jan. 25.
Photographer: Tomohiro Ohsumi/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
China is in a “golden age” for natural gas that will make it the world’s biggest user of the fuel sometime between 2040 and 2050, according to analysts at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co.
The nation is poised to outpace the U.S., the current No. 1 consumer of natural gas, as well as all other countries over the next two decades, Bernstein said in an Oct. 17 research note. China led growth in global oil demand for much of the past 20 years.