OREANDA-NEWS. The withdrawal of Russian natural gas liquefaction plants from scheduled repairs and the launch of navigation along the Northern Sea Route allowed Russia to increase supplies of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to China in July 2020 to a record value.

According to the statistics of the Chinese customs, Australia occupies the first position in the country’s market by a wide margin (3.279 billion cubic meters of LNG in July). It is followed by Malaysia (913 million cubic meters) and Indonesia (759 million cubic meters), from which Russia with 717 million cubic meters is not far away. Russian LNG supplies to China are so far twice as large as pipeline gas deliveries (379 million cubic meters). In July, Russia managed to bypass the world’s largest producer, Qatar, for LNG supplies to China.

In total, in July, Beijing purchased 5.957 million tons or 7.828 billion cubic meters of LNG which is 16 % more than a year earlier and 18 % more than in June 2020.