中国天然气短缺蔓延至南方

Gas shortages are spreading to industrial sectors in southern and western China after authorities in Beijing diverted the fuel to the north to resolve an LNG shortfall caused by a botched effort to cut coal use.

天然气短缺正蔓延至中国南部和西部的工业部门。此前，北京当局将天然气转移至中国北方，以解决拙劣的限煤努力造成的液化天然气(LNG)短缺。

Chemicals producers in Sichuan and Chongqing, in China’s south-west, have been ordered to shut or curtail production until March, heightening the economic impact of the disruption.

在中国西南的四川和重庆，化学品生产商已被下令在明年3月前停产或减产，这加剧了这场动荡造成的经济影响。

The National Energy Administration has taken over gas allocation from state-owned oil companies in an effort to co-ordinate an increasingly complex set of diversions to mitigate the shortfall.

中国国家能源局已从国有石油公司手中接过了天然气分配工作，以协调为缓解这种短缺而进行的、日益复杂的天然气调配。

“The emergency response to manage gas flow now is essentially a bureaucrat-dispatched system,” said Zhou Xizhou, managing director for Asia gas and power at IHS Markit.

IHS Markit亚洲天然气和电力董事总经理周希舟说：“现在对天然气流向管理的紧急应对基本上是一个由官僚来调配的体系。”

Beijing moved to cap gas prices in late-November after demand jumped in northern China following the onset of cold weather.

随着寒冷天气来临，中国北方对天然气的需求激增，北京方面在11月末采取行动限制天然气价格。

The Guangdong Oil & Gas Association warned that shortages could also occur in China’s export-orientated south if colder weather coincided with increased diversions to the north. Gas was also being diverted from two coal-dependent provinces to the west towards the region around Beijing.

广东油气商会(Guangdong Oil & Gas Association)警告称，如果天气变得更加寒冷，与此同时向北方的调气增多，那么以出口为导向的中国南方也可能出现天然气短缺。目前，当局还在把西部两个依赖煤炭的省份的天然气调往环京地区。

In the north-eastern province of Shanxi, where trucking companies were encouraged to switch to gas a few years ago, the price per litre has jumped and vehicles that are still operating face long refuelling lines.

在山西省，几年前当地曾鼓励卡车运输企业“油改气”，现在每公升天然气价格已经跳涨，还在运营的车辆要加气得排长队。

“All [our] trucks that run on natural gas have been stopped, as natural gas is now more expensive than diesel,” said an executive at a Chinese company with a national truck network. “You would be making a loss on every deal.”

“(我们的)所有烧天然气的卡车都停运了，因为现在天然气比柴油贵。”一家在全国拥有运营网络的卡车运输公司的一名高管说，“每跑一单都会赔钱。”

The problem stems from a 2013 plan aimed at relieving Beijing’s pollution by moving heavy industry out of the surrounding North China Plain, converting smaller industrial users from coal-fired boilers to gas or the power grid and curbing coal-powered home heating.

这个问题源自2013年的一项计划。该计划旨在缓解北京的污染，措施包括将重工业从华北平原迁出，对小型工业企业的燃煤锅炉实施“煤改气”或“煤改电”改造，以及限制居民住宅燃煤取暖。

However, some environmental inspectors and local government teams have removed boilers and home heating stoves before the replacement gas infrastructure was installed.

然而，在替换的天然气基础设施安装好前，一些环保督察人员和地方政府的小组就拆除了燃煤锅炉和家用取暖煤炉。

Beijing last week relented and allowed coal to be burnt in rural homes after millions of households were left without heat in winter weather. It has also restarted an emergency coal-fired power plant after earlier switching its relatively clean-burning coal-fired plants to power systems that run on gas made from coal.

在数百万家庭面临在冬天无法取暖的困境后，上周北京方面有所放松，允许农村家庭燃煤取暖。早些时候一些使用相对清洁煤炭的火电厂转变为使用煤制天然气的发电系统后，北京方面现在已重新启动了一个应急燃煤电厂。

The China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank on Monday approved its first corporate lending — a $250m loan that will allow state-owned Beijing Gas Group to extend gas pipeline infrastructure to roughly 217,000 households around Beijing by 2021.

中国牵头的亚洲基础设施投资银行(Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank)周一批准了第一笔企业贷款——对国有的北京燃气集团(Beijing Gas Group)发放一笔2.5亿美元的贷款，用于扩建天然气管道基础设施，在2021年前覆盖北京郊区约21.7万个家庭。

Another factor contributing to the shortages is the broad economic recovery in northern China, after a slump in growth from 2012-2016 that went unrecognised in official GDP statistics and may have contributed to planners’ miscalculation of how much coal would need to be substituted by gas.

另外一个导致天然气短缺的因素是中国北方整体的经济复苏。2012年至2016年的经济增速放缓或许导致规划者误判了到底有多少煤需要替换成天然气。

The planning agency, the National Development and Reform Commission, is also in charge of China’s international negotiations to limit emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Beijing has been keen to claim international leadership in the effort to avert climate change after the Trump administration vowed to pull the US out of commitments made in Paris, two years ago this week.

与此同时，规划机构国家发改委正在负责与中国限制二氧化碳和其他温室气体排放有关的国际协商。在特朗普(Trump)政府发誓让美国退出在两年前的这周达成的巴黎气候协定后，北京方面渴望在阻止气候变化的努力中扮演国际领导角色。

While China’s economic slowdown helped keep global emissions flat in the past few years, they are expected to rise 2 per cent this year after the economic recovery pushed up coal usage.

尽管中国的经济放缓在过去几年帮助全球排放量保持稳定，但在中国的经济复苏导致煤炭使用量增长后，预计今年的全球排放量将上升2%。

Additional reporting by Emily Feng Emily Feng补充报道