In June, China imported  5.5779 million tons of natural gas with a year-on-year growth of 30%. And in the first half of the year, 31.11 million tons of natural gas was imported, among which gaseous gas is almost flat; In addition, 15.92 million tons of liquefied natural gas (LNG) was imported with a year-on-year growth of 38%. Sun Yang, a zhongyu information analyst, said that China has already increased its imports of LNG as guangxi's beihai, cnooc guangdong and guanghui qidong terminal have been put into operation.

Compared with the major LNG importing countries in China in the past two years, Australia was the largest importer and the United States relatively experienced a big change with its proportion of imports increasing from 0.3% to the current 3%.

Australia was the largest exporter of LNG in 2016, with a year-on-year growth of 119%. Although the United States exported only 3.73 million tonnes last year, its year-on-year growth rate was almost 10 times.

On August 22, 2016, a ship of about 60,000 tons of LNG was shipped from the United States to China for the first time. In the first half of 2017, China imported 460,000 tons of LNG from the United States, and its imports have gradually increased.

According to the US Commerce Department, the United States welcomes China (and other trading partners) to receive imported LNG from the United States. The United States has given China the most-favoured-nation treatment in the export of the LNG,  in line with other non-self-trade Agreement countries (NON-FTA).

For Chinese buyers, the new LNG supply represented by the us shale revolution is expected to have a profound impact on its future procurement strategy, sun said. At present, most of the price is still pegged to crude oil prices, such as the Japanese crude oil clearance price (JCC) and Brent crude oil prices. From the perspective of future development, the global gas pattern will be gradually changed from supply market to buyer market. What's more, with the increase of trade between the two countries, the focus of business negotiations between Chinese buyers and U.S. LNG suppliers will be on pricing.