China Confronts Natural Gas Costs - RFA
An analysis by Michael Lelyveld

Even with the rate increase, the resulting retail prices of gas for industry will still be slightly lower than pipeline supplies from Central Asia when they enter the country, said market analyst Clyde Russell in a Reuters report.

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Power plants with fuel-switching capability should have plans ready for shifting to coal or oil, the NDRC said.

...Philip Andrews-Speed, a China energy expert at the National University of Singapore's Energy Studies Institute, suggested that the complex measure could have the opposite of the intended effect by pushing some industries back into cheaper coal.

"Potential incremental users of gas will need to decide if they can afford to buy gas at the higher price or, alternatively, use coal or not invest," said Andrews-Speed.

Pakistan and China revisit energy corridor - Interfax
If completed, the cross-border pipelines could shorten the transport distance for some of China’s Middle Eastern oil, while also opening up a new western corridor for the country’s growing gas imports. However, while China and Pakistan have previously talked about building cross-border oil and gas pipelines along the Karakoram Highway – which already connects the two countries through the Khunjerab Pass – security concerns have complicated discussions.

Schlumberger to team up with CNOOC oilfield unit - Interfax
China Oilfield Services (COSL) has signed an agreement with Schlumberger to cooperate in deepwater operations, the offshore oilfield services subsidiary of China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC) said in an announcement.

Under the recently signed agreement, Schlumberger will provide COSL with training in technology and management of seven areas – including drilling, cable logging and well cementing in deepwater – according to the announcement.

China’s gas growth bucks economic slowdown - Interfax
China’s gas market fundamentals remained strong during H1 2013, shrugging off a
China’s implied gas consumption increased by 13.1% year on year, to 81.5 billion cubic metres in H1, while output rose by 9% to 58.8 bcm, data from the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) showed. Imports climbed by 24.6% over the same period to 24.7 bcm.
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Piped gas imports last month surged by 26.54% from a year earlier to 1.63 mt at a total cost of $797.79 million – up by 15.56% from 2012.
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June LNG imports, however, inched up just 3.21% from last year, to 1.25 mt. That was the only single-digit increase for this year and the lowest growth since last November, when import volumes fell year on year.

The value of China’s LNG shipments from countries such as Qatar, Australia and Indonesia last month declined by 1.16% annually to $721.17 million – again, for the first time since November.

Do China’s polluting firms deserve better treatment? Chinadialogue.net
In 2012 Beijing shut down 200 polluting or energy inefficient firms, with a similar number to be closed this year. In Taiyuan 118 firms were shut down in the first half of the year. The companies closed were mostly producing construction materials, chemicals, or were foundries and electroplating plants. These sectors are often responsible for pollution and carbon emissions; shutting them down will certainly have a positive environmental impact in the short-term.

But Yang Zhaofei, deputy chair of the China Society for Environmental Sciences and formerly chief engineer at the Ministry of Environmental Protection, believes that simply ordering polluting firms to shut down will fail to resolve environmental problems. The real question is how to responsibly help the companies cease operations or change sector.

Yang told chinadialogue that “when faced with public anger the government often shuts down the firm without even thinking about its circumstances – i.e. is it a legal business, what investments have been made, etc.”