China's state oil and gas majors are set to import record levels of liquefied natural gas (LNG) this month, betting on robust demand during the cold winter months and helping lift Asian prices to their highest in nearly two years.

India, the world's third-biggest energy consumer, is striving to grow its natural gas use and shift away from oil and coal for power and industry, but its lack of gas import infrastructure is stymieing faster adoption of the cleaner-burning fuel.

Novatek is planning a new large-scale project known as Arctic LNG 2, which targets annual production of 12 million to 16 million tons of LNG, with operations aimed to start by 2025. Mikhelson expressed a desire to see Japan be a cooperative partner at every step of the plan, from gas production to liquefaction plant construction and management, all the way to sales. It was also made clear that should Japanese enterprises cooperate, the country could expect a portion of the output.

“The rampant cost inflation on Australian projects combined with the collapse in oil prices is damaging for a lot of these projects,” said Neil Beveridge, analyst at Bernstein. LNG prices have been affected by a supply glut and are also linked to oil prices in Asia.

For the April-September period, India’s LNG imports were 12.7bn m³, up almost by 27% on year.

The three facilities have the combined capacity to supply 25mn mt/yr of LNG –equal to about 8% of the world’s production, Bechtel said October 11.

With hundreds of millions of people living without electricity in the world's poorest continent, African countries are increasingly turning to gas to take advantage of lower global LNG prices amid a supply glut.

Petronas, Malaysia’s state-owned oil and gas group, has gained approval from the Canadian government for a controversial $27bn liquefied natural gas project — but said it would have to consider the environmental conditions attached before deciding to proceed.

The cost of importing LNG has dropped sharply this year after New Delhi signed a revised long term contract with Doha. Qatar is the largest supplier of LNG to India. Given the backdrop of low global LNG prices, Petronet LNG insisted on renegotiating its long term contract with RasGas.

Chevron Corporation (NYSE: CVX) announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Chevron U.S.A. Inc., has signed a binding LNG Sales and Purchase Agreement (SPA) with ENN LNG Trading Company Limited (ENN) for the delivery of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to China from Chevron’s global supply portfolio. Under the terms of the SPA, ENN will receive up to 0.65 million metric tons per annum (MTPA) of LNG over 10 years, with the first delivery expected to start in 2018 or the first half of 2019.