PetroChina Co Ltd, the nation's biggest oil company, is in talks with more than 10 LNG (liquefied natural gas) sellers worldwide to secure fuel sources for its three government-approved terminals along the east coast.

 

"We are currently talking to more than 10 countries about importing LNG into China," a senior PetroChina official in charge of its natural gas business told China Daily.

 

"Efforts to build LNG transport vessels are also in progress," he added, declining to give further details.

 

France-based Total and Statoil, based in Norway, said they are interested in selling LNG to China.

 

The company official made the remarks in response to market rumors that China has stalled on the building of the terminals because the country cannot afford LNG at its current high price.

 

PetroChina, which accounts for more than 70 percent of China's domestic natural gas production, has received the go-ahead from the central government to conduct a feasibility study into building three LNG terminals in the coastal provinces of Jiangsu, Hebei and Liaoning, a PetroChina senior vice-president told China Daily last June.

 

The three LNG facilities are designed to have a combined initial capacity of more than 10 million tons of LNG.

 

Rising gas prices, pegged to global crude prices, have prolonged talks between China's energy majors and LNG suppliers over imports of the cleaner fuel.

 

Crude oil reached a record US$75.35 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange last month, the highest price since trading began in 1983.

 

Disagreements over prices are reported to be the biggest hurdle for the nation's biggest offshore oil company, China National Offshore Oil Corp (CNOOC), in its bid to secure LNG sources from the BP-led Tangguh project in Indonesia for its LNG terminal in East China's Fujian Province.

 

CNOOC, the nation's third-biggest oil firm after PetroChina and Sinopec, has received governmental approval for two LNG terminals, one each in Guangdong and Fujian.

 

The Guangdong venture has already received its first shipment of 60,000 tons of LNG from Karratha in Australia

 

Liu Junshan, a spokesman for Beijing-based CNOOC, yesterday told China Daily that talks with the Indonesia LNG supplier were proceeding "smoothly."

 

(China Daily June 6, 2006)