Feb. 21 (Bloomberg) -- China, the world's second-largest energy user, is resuming imports of individual liquefied natural gas cargoes after record snowfall disrupted fuel supplies to power plants, a Chinese official said.

Guangdong Dapeng LNG Co. is in talks to purchase one spot cargo for April delivery, said the official, asking not to be identified because the discussions are confidential. China is in talks with suppliers near the Atlantic ocean including Egypt, Trinidad and Algeria for spot cargoes, said Andy Flower, a U.K.- based consultant and a former executive at BP Plc's LNG business.

China, which imports LNG under a multiyear contract with Australia, has halted spot purchases since November because prices climbed during the Northern Hemisphere winter. Utilities in Japan and South Korea paid as much as $20 per million British thermal units this winter, more than double the U.S. benchmark at Henry Hub, Louisiana.

``Prices for April have come down because of warmer weather in Europe and Korea,'' Flower said in a phone interview from London yesterday. ``There are more cargoes available in summer.''

The Guangdong provincial government has allowed the Dapeng terminal to increase the selling price of the fuel to local power plants to 4 yuan ($0.56) a cubic meter, the official said. That's equivalent to about $14 a million British thermal units.

Guangdong Dapeng, the nation's only LNG importer, currently sells the fuel for about 3 yuan a cubic meter, Kevin Zhuang, an analyst with Guangdong Oil & Gas Association, said by telephone today.

Algerian Cargo

China paid $9.25 per million British thermal units for a spot cargo from Algeria in October, a record for China, according to customs data. The company may not buy spot cargoes before March, given the high costs, Yu Yi, vice president of Guangdong Dapeng said Jan. 16.

The terminal, a venture between China National Offshore Oil Corp. and BP Plc, supplies power producers and residents in southern China's Guangdong province, the nation's manufacturing hub. The capital city Guangzhou had a power shortage of 1,000 megawatts after fuel supply was disrupted by more than three weeks of snow, the state-run Xinhua News Agency said Feb. 18.

The $900 million terminal has a contract with Australia's North West Shelf project, operated by Woodside Petroleum Ltd. and one-sixth owned by BP, for about 3.7 million tons of LNG a year.

China shut 7 percent of its coal-fired power units after snow hampered transportation of coal, Xinhua said Jan. 28. The snowfall led to record power shortages in China, causing disruptions in at least half the country's 31 provinces before the week-long Lunar New Year holidays that ended Feb. 12.

LNG is natural gas chilled to liquid form, reducing it to one-six-hundredth of its original volume at minus 161 degrees Celsius (minus 258 degrees Fahrenheit) for transportation by ship to destinations not connected by pipeline. It is turned back into gas for distribution to users.

To contact the reporters on this story: Winnie Zhu in Shanghai at wzhu4@bloomberg.net; Dinakar Sethuraman in Singapore at dinakar@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: February 21, 2008 00:36 EST