UK-based research and development company Innovative Physics Ltd (IPL) and China Environmental Protection Company Ltd (CEPC) have signed an agreement on technologies and skills to further improve the safety of nuclear power plants in China and overseas.

Australia supplied over 53% of China’s LNG imports during the first five months of 2019, shipping data in Refinitiv showed, up from around 40% in 2016 when a previous round of new Australian export projects started to ramp up.

Over the last decade Russia and China have significantly increased their energy links, with Russia ramping up supplies of crude and gas, and attracting Chinese investment into major new energy projects.

A general contract for Russian-designed power units No. 3 and No. 4 construction with VVER-1200 reactors at Xudapu nuclear power plant was signed on June 5 in Moscow in presence of heads of Russia and China. The official signing ceremony took place during President of China Xi Jinping state visit to Russia.

Moscow, 5 June 2019. Today, during the official visit of the President of the People’s Republic of China Xi Jinping to the Russian Federation, PAO NOVATEK (“NOVATEK” and/or the “Company”), Sinopec and Gazprombank signed Heads of Agreement (“Agreement”) on establishing a joint venture to market LNG and natural gas to end-customers in the People’s Republic of China.

This was up 8.7% month on month from April imports of 1.62 million mt, and 20.9% higher from a year earlier. About 94.5% of the Russian imports were ESPO blend, with just one cargo of 96,000-mt of Sokol.

Over January-April, China imported 8.93 million mt of LNG from Australia, up 40.2% year on year, the customs data showed.

China is the world’s largest coal consumer and the largest buyer of Indonesia’s coal. In 2018, it imported 125 million metric tons of mostly low-calorie coal from Indonesia, absorbing 25 percent of Indonesia’s coal exports.

“The U.S. and China have a natural supply-demand match when it comes to energy, but China’s increase of retaliatory tariffs to 25 percent poses a threat to U.S. investment in LNG by limiting our share in the world’s fastest growing LNG market,” said Stephen Comstock, API Director. “These retaliatory tariffs dampen the prospects for the growing U.S. LNG investment, hurt U.S. workers, and benefit America’s foreign competitors.

China's refinery crude throughput rose 5.1% year on year to 52.1 million mt, or 12.73 million b/d in April, a record high on barrel per day basis, preliminary data released Wednesday by the National Bureau of Statistics showed.