›› 2017, Vol. 29 ›› Issue (8): 23-32.

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Is China's Natural Gas Industry Growing Too Fast?

Chai Jian1,2, Lu Quanying2, Xing Limin2, Qiao Han3, Kin Keung Lai2,4, Lan Peng5   

  1. 1. School of Economics and Management, Xidian University, Xi'an 710126;
    2. International Business School, Shaanxi Normal University, Xi'an 710062;
    3. School of Economics and Management, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190;
    4. Department of Management Sciences, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong 999097;
    5. Machinery Industry Information Center, Beijing 100823
  • Received:2015-12-14 Online:2017-08-28 Published:2017-09-26

Abstract:

Natural gas in China's energy structure has been rising in recent years and its supply is increasingly dependent on import. However, in the "New Normal" period, the slowdown in gas demand caused by domestic economic downturn and falling global oil prices have lead to gas oversupply. Under this background, it is significant to analyze the current situation and future capacity of natural gas supply and demand. At first, this paper uses path analysis to screen the core of factors that influence natural gas consumption and supply, then predicts gas consumption, production and imports in China by the RBF neural network quantile regression (RBF-QRNN) model, ETS model and scenario analysis method separately, and lastly, discusses and compares the results of consumption and supply. The result shows that the natural gas consumption in China will reach around 178649.23 million cubic meters by the end of "the Twelfth Five-Year Plan" and about 264698.86 million cubic meters by 2020. And the natural gas supply will reach around 228691.5 million cubic meters by the end of "the Twelfth Five-Year Plan" and about 295819.4 million cubic meters by 2020. Annual supply will grow faster than consumption. Starting from 2015, natural gas supply has tended to be over-supplied.

Key words: natural gas consumption, supply and demand, RBF neural network, quantile regression, probability density forecast, ETS, scenario analysis