Dutch front-month futures, were 0.2% lower at €66.80 a megawatt-hour by 8:58 a.m. in Amsterdam, after rising as much as 3.1% earlier.

Out of the total, €9bn will go to gas infrastructure, including €6.3bn in gas transportation (including the upgrade of the 430 km Adriatic Line onshore pipeline), €1.4bn in LNG infrastructure (purchase of of two new FSRU-based LNG terminals and development of related infrastructure), and €1.3bn in the expansion of gas storage capacity.

Preliminary production figures for December 2022 show an average daily production of 1 983 000 barrels of oil, NGL and condensate.

Dutch front-month futures, Europe’s gas benchmark, were 2.8% lower at €59 a megawatt-hour by 8:29 a.m. in Amsterdam.

The region’s storage sites are around 81% full, some 20 percentage points above the five-year average. That’s providing confidence that Europe will end the winter with inventories over 50% and “more than enough gas to completely replenish its storage by the start of next winter,”

Gas prices may have dropped, but are still almost double their five-year average for the time of year.

China's natural gas imports also fell, by 9.9% to 109.25 Mt in 2022 (121.26 Mt in 2021). LNG imports dropped by 19% to 64.13 Mt in 2022 (79.3 Mt in 2021). Similarly, China’s coal imports fell 9.2% to 293.2 Mt in 2022 (335 Mt in 2021).

Despite the adoption of the Versailles Declaration in March 2022, when leaders of the 27 EU member states pledged to phase out the EU’s dependence on Russian fossil fuels as soon as possible, imports of Russian LNG increased by 12% in 2022 compared to 2021.

According to the EU-US announcement, EU commission aims to increase annual demand for American LNG by 50BCM by the end of 2030 and procure 15BCM more in 2022,

China's LPG imports over January-November 2022 rose 7% on the year to 24.2 million mt, led by supply from the US, the UAE, Oman, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, customs data showed.