China's natural gas consumption peak and factors analysis: a regional perspective

China's natural gas consumption usually accounts for a small proportion of total energy consumption but it has increased rapidly in recent years. China has a vast territory and the level of economic development varies significantly across regions. In this paper, a panel unit root and heterogeneous panel cointegration methods are applied to investigate the natural gas consumption of 30 provinces in mainland China. The influencing factors of natural gas consumption are also investigated. From a long-term point of view, China's per capita natural gas consumption seems to fit the energy Kuznets curve, which implies that the current rapid growth rate of natural gas consumption would not be sustained in the long term. There is a peak at 200-450 cubic meters, which is about 2-4 times the current consumption per capita of China and about 7%-16% of Russia. The specific peak consumption level and peak year depend on the speed of economic development and the pace of pipeline network development. In summary, gas population rate plays a more important role in gas consumption in the long run and the impact of GDP weakens. The potential of gas consumption of the different regions differs greatly. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.