Abstract：
Under the new development pattern of “
Dual Circulation
” and the new goal of “
Carbon Neutrality
”, China’s future
energy conservation and emission reduction path will be steeper than that of developed countries in Europe and America. In the
process of energy transformation, natural gas, as a clean, low-carbon and high-heat fossil fuel, is expected to release its demand
potential further. However, the instabilities of the resource supply, price system and infrastructure restriction have led to the tight
supply of natural gas in China. Therefore, it is necessary to predict and deal with the medium and long-term import situation of
natural gas in China in the background of “
Dual Circulation
” and “
Carbon Neutrality
” through simulation.
This paper analyzed the existing problems and predicted the future trends of China’s natural gas market demand, resource
supply pattern, infrastructure construction and mechanism reform. It constructed the simulation model of China’s natural gas
trade based on the
Global Gas Market
Model proposed by Egging et al. Finally, based on the possible development paths of
natural gas supply and demand and infrastructure, China’s medium-and long-term gas import situation under multiple scenarios
was numerically simulated.
The development goals of “
Dual Circulation
” and “
Carbon Neutrality
” promote the consumption to peak in advance
between 2035 and 2040. The simulation results show that the commit to be “
Carbon Neutrality
” and the potential elimination
of infrastructure bottlenecks will bring greater pressure on the gas supply. Since the increase of domestic natural gas production
is lower than the rise in consumption, China will face higher dependence on imported natural gas and greater supply security
risks. If the bottleneck of storage and transportation facilities is completely removed before 2050, the LNG import will release
huge growth potential. In that case, the proportion of LNG imports in the total natural gas imports will further increase, and both
the long-term contract and spot contract of LNG from United States and Africa will make up for the incremental gas demand of
China. To the contrary, pipeline gas trading volume will be relatively stable because the supply capacity from Central Asia and
Russia are restricted. After the peak of natural gas consumption, there may be infrastructure redundancy such as LNG receiving
stations, so the government should fully assess the paths of energy transition, give full play to the transitional energy of natural
gas and guarantee the safety of energy supply. To mitigate potential infrastructure redundancy, the government should formulate
protective policies in advance to reduce investment risks.
