CHINA Gas Holdings, one of China’s largest domestic natural gas distributors, expects sales to rise 30-45 percent this fiscal year and “sustainable high growth” the next few years due to the government’s clean air push, the company’s founder said. China Gas, which counts South Korea’s SK Group and India’s GAIL among its investors, plans to expand its extensive pipeline network, and is in talks with potential partners on building its first receiving terminal for imported liquefied gas, said Liu Minghui, the company’s founder and president. Liu did not give the company’s outright gas sales volume for the financial year to end March 2018, but estimated his company makes up 8-9 percent of China’s total gas consumption. China, the world’s third-biggest gas consumer, will burn 240 billion cubic meters of the cleaner-burning fuel this year, up 15 percent versus 2016 in the nation’s fastest growth since 2011, according to consultancy SIA Energy. The growth in use is fuelled by the government’s program to heat millions of homes with gas this winter in some 30 northern cities. Liu, who set up China Gas in 2002 and holds the second-largest block of shares after Beijing Enterprises Holdings, said the firm plans to lay 20,000 to 30,000 kilometers of pipeline every year over the next three to five years. The firm now operates some 140,000 kilometers of natural gas pipeline, enough to go around the earth 3-1/2 times. (SD-Agencies) |