Thinking on peak sheaving in China with Russian gas storage under the background of Russia-Ukraine conflict

Abstract

The Russia–Ukraine conflict has imposed a profound impact on the global energy market and geopolitics, and also brings about a major challenge to China's energy security. In the winter of 2022, it is inevitable for Europe to have stronger access to global LNG, and its price will be at high price. Thus, the LNG import of China will be decreased, thus bringing severe challenges to supply guarantee in the winter, especially during the peak months of this winter. Due to the reduction of Russian oil and gas imports by Europe, a considerable volume of the working gas of Russia's gas storage(1 100×108 m3) becomes useless. Therefore, the feasibility of utilizing the working gas of Russia's gas storage for peak sheaving of China's gas supply market was discussed under the condition of obviously insufficient capacity of China's gas storage. Hence, three approaches were proposed, including(1) gas exchanging by Central Asia-China Gas Pipeline,(2) LNG interchange in Russia, and(3) increasing gas transportation capacity of China–Russia Eastern Gas Pipeline to realize operation at full load. Meanwhile,requirement was put forward for Russia to supply gas supply with the quality in strict accordance with the contract. Generally,the relevant recommendations could provide reference for the supply guarantee in the winter of 2022.

Keywords

• gas storage
• russia-ukraine conflict
• peak sheaving
• natural gas market