China industries face a hard winter on gas shortage
Tue Nov 24, 2009 5:31pm IST
By Jim Bai and Tom Miles
BEIJING (Reuters) - China's energy firms are reducing gas supplies to industry to avoid having to cut off households during winter, but risking more factory shutdowns, dampening production and raising costs as shortages may worsen.
The shortfalls began this month when early, heavy snow hit northern China, spiking up heating demand and forcing PetroChina to divert south China's supplies northwards. The cold spell then hit the south, adding to demand and slowing supplies.
PetroChina, the country's leading gas supplier, said on Tuesday it would make a second cut of 3 million cubic metres (mcm) in the daily amount it delivers to industrial users in northern China, reducing their volumes by another 10 percent.
PetroChina has also cut 3 mcm per day, or 8 percent, from supplies to firms in the Yangtze River delta and the provinces of Hunan and Hubei, as well as trimming flows to industries in the southwest and northwest, the main gas producing regions.
As demand peaks in December and January, gas shortages are expected to reach 8 mcm daily in north China and 5-6 mcm per day in the south, China Petroleum Daily, an in-house newspaper of CNPC, PetroChina's parent, said on Tuesday.
"Gas for household needs and for heating can be guaranteed in the winter and spring by further reducing supplies to industrial users," Lin Changhai, general manager of PetroChina's gas sales unit in northern China, was quoted as saying.
In southwestern Chongqing, taxis lined up for compressed natural gas (CNG) as the sudden drop in temperatures slowed pipeline flows, lengthening refuelling time. Many were reluctant to shift to gasoline, which costs three times as much.
Gas supplies for taxis in Wuhan in Hubei province were halted from Nov. 16, forcing the local government to dole out subisidies to taxi drivers who switched to expensive gasoline. Continued...
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in.reuters.com |
