According to Bai Rongchun, "The government [is] making a long-term plan to better exploit and utilise natural gas to speed up national energy security. Meanwhile, it [will] improve the regulatory framework in order to establish a more open and fair environment for both domestic and overseas investors."

"The government particularly welcomed foreign investors to cooperate in the natural gas sector and had modified the related regulations and loosened controls in order to facilitate investment," added the director.

Bai envisages that the massive investment will allow China to generate around 220 billion cubic metres of natural gas. The SDRC director believes that two thirds of that amount could be used for power generation and urban fuels but acknowledges that this would mean that since domestic demand would still exceed the balance, China would still need to import natural gas.

"China [is still] planning to pipe gas from other countries, including Russia, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan, while importing LNG for coastal areas," said Bai, who was speaking to delegates at the eighth International Conference on Northeast Asian Natural Gas and Pipeline.