Supply, Demand Status and Development Prospect of Natural Gas in Northeast Asia

In recent years, as Northeast Asia economy has gained momentum, Northeast Asia has been among the regions witnessing the fastest growth in energy consumption around the world. Meanwhile, the raising awareness of environmental protection has also resulted in an increasing value of natural gas which is a relatively clean fossil energy. Base on that, the consumption of natural gas is continually growing which taking more shares in primary energy consumption mix gradually. But the distribution of natural gas resources in Northeast Asian countries is seriously uneven. In particular, Russia has huge export potential due to its abundant natural gas reserves; whereas China, Japan and South Korea have already imported natural gas on large scales, with an imported volume of LNG accounting for more than 60% the world's total; Mongolia and North Korea are two potential gas import countries. Natural gas demand in Northeast Asia is expected to maintain a rapid growth momentum in the next 20 years, and the unbalance between supply and demand in this region will remain prominent. Therefore, several measures must be adopted to ensure the stable and safe gas supply of Northeast Asia. These necessary measures include optimizing the primary energy consumption pattern and improving the energy efficiency. Accelerating nature gas development and using are the realistic choice to meet energy security, economic, environment friendly and safety requirements. "Asian premium" can be solved gradually by shale gas development and multisupplier trend. Countries need to enhance mutual trust, accelerate the construction of the regional pipeline network system, promote to develop the Asia gas trading hub and achieve a win-win results for all.