[10]P7 Northeast Asia Gas Demand and Transportation in the 21st Century

[10]P7 Northeast Asia Gas Demand and Transportation in the 21st Century

A continuance of explosive economic development and increasing concern on environment in northeast Asia has stimulated a significant rise in natural gas demand-a high quality primary energy. It is predicated that the gas demand in northeast Asia will likely to reach 330.4 x lo9 m3/a by the year 2010, with the demand of China, Japan and South Korea totaling 276 x lo9 m3/a. At present, the natural gas supply in Japan and South Korea mainly relies on LNG imports from southeast Asia, Australia, Middle East and Alaska while China depends on domestic production. The current gas supply structure in northeast Asia can hardly meet the expending gas demand in 21st century. East Siberia and Far East of Russia, west of China and Central Asia are rich in natural gas resources and are highly potential to alleviate the gas shortage in northeast Asia in the next century.This paper compares the economic feasibility of gas transportation via pipeline with the transportation via LNG. Results show that pipeline transmission, in most cases, is the best solution. Ways and opportunities for effectively lowering the pipeline cost are presented in this paper, adding that the optimum design is the base for cost reduction. Key technical parameters, such as pipeline diameter, operating pressure, transmission temperature, and compression ratio are influential factors on pipeline cost. Based on extensive calculations and analysis, the optimum range and possible development trend of these parameters are put forward. 1. DEMAND AND SUPPLY OF NATURAL GAS-GENERAL CONDITIONS With the rapid development in economy in Asia in the past 20 years, demand in energy experiences fast growth, meanwhile, the environmental consciousness of countries has improved, all these imply an ever higher demand on primary energy resource. Natural gas is a high quality, low pollution energy resource, however, its share in total energy consumption in most of the Asian countries is only 6.7%, far below the world average of 23.2%. It is estimated that the natural gas consumption worldwide will likely account for 25% of the total energy consumption at the beginning of the next century and natural gas demand and its development potential in Asia will definitely be great.Gas market in northeast Asia, including China, DPRK, South Korea, Japan, Mongolia and the Asian part of Russia, mainly concentrate in Japan, east China and South Korea where local gas resources fall far short of demand. However, the gas reserves in west China and Asian part of Russia is notably rich. Therefore, it is of great significance to investigate into the gas demand, supply, transportation in the region in an effort to find rational and economically feasible solutions to the existing problems. 1 .I. Prediction of demand Japan began to import LNG in 1960's and natu

1997-10-12

Hequn, Liu

Chengwu, Miao

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