Blue Skies in China Will Be a Global Gas Producer’s Best Friend
- Accounts for 37% of world gas demand growth to 2023: IEA
- Gas boom has reduced pollution but created winter shortages
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Chinese President Xi Jinping’s push to clear his nation’s notorious smog will drive global natural gas demand into next decade, according to the International Energy Agency.
The world’s largest energy user will boost consumption of the fuel by 8 percent a year from 2017 to 2023, a total increase of 139 billion cubic meters and accounting for more than one-third of global demand growth, the IEA said in its annual gas market report Tuesday. Almost 60 percent of that incremental demand will come from the industrial and residential sectors, which have been pushed by the government to use more natural gas in place of coal.