Prospect of LNG exports to China quite promising

The prospect of Indonesia?s liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports to China?s eastern cost provinces is quite promising. Besides Fujian, three other provinces in the area, Xejiang, Jiangsu, and Shandong need a large quantity of LNG to meet their future energy demand, a statement from ministry of energy and mineral resources said on Tuesday.

The demand for LNG from Jiangsu alone reaches three million tons a year to fill in the demand from the province?s power plants and other industries.

"The promising prospect of LNG exports can be seen from the Chinese government?s plan to construct underground gas pipeline linking the Fujian gas receiving terminal to other provinces in the coastal area," the statement said.

The ministry said that the LNG that will be shipped from BP Indonesia?s Tangguh project in Papua will be also be transmitted from Ning-te in Fujian province to Wen-zhou in Xejiang province through a 160-kilometer pipeline.

The Chinese government will also build a 2,500 kilometer gas pipeline from Xejiang to Shanghai. "It indicates that the success of Indonesia to secure LNG export to Fujian is quite strategic to tap the growing gas demand in the country," the ministry said.

Indonesia has been recently awarded to supply LNG of about 2.6 million tons to Fujian a year beginning 2007. The province will build a LNG receiving terminal with a capacity of about 5 million tons to receive the LNG supply. (godang)