中国快速推进 '煤改气' 致严重天然气短缺

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Keith Bradsher, 中国快速推进 '煤改气' 致严重天然气短缺. 纽约时报, Dec 13, 2017
https://cn.nytimes.com/business/20171213/china-gas-coal/

, which is translated from

Keith Bradsher, Even Spandex Is Hit by an Energy Squeeze; China's shift to natural gas goes awry. New York Times, Dec 13, 2017.

Quote:

(a) "People’s Daily published photos last week of elementary school students having classes outdoors in subfreezing weather because it was even colder indoors.

(b) "China already consumes considerably more natural gas than it produces, importing the difference. The country also regulates the price * * * Keeping prices low, though, has meant that [state-owned] energy companies have had little incentive to produce or import more natural gas. PetroChina, the main oil and gas company in northern China, reported that its losses from natural gas climbed steeply in the first three quarters of this year compared with the same period in 2016.  

"Yet there is one big exception in consumer prices for natural gas in China: the compressed natural gas burned by many taxis in big Chinese cities, and by a growing number of trucks as well. Compressed natural gas prices have surged 65 percent since early November, prompting government officials to warn last week against price gouging.

(c) "The Chinese government on Tuesday shut down big chemical factories in western China for as long as four months to free up natural gas to heat homes and schools. * * * BASF, the German chemicals giant, announced on Tuesday [Dec 12] that a gas shortage had prompted it to invoke force majeure to break delivery contracts from its huge complex in Chongqing, in western China. That factory alone manufactures more than 5 percent of the world's supply of a chemical, known as MDI, that is used to make spandex as well as insulation for refrigerators, cars and houses.

"While MDI factories outside China mainly produce the chemical for insulation, China dominates global production of garments made from spandex, the stretchy material best known in the United States under the Lycra brand name. The BASF shutdown may drive MDI prices even higher.

My comment:
(a) There is no need to read the rest.
(b) Quotation (b) may explain why China does not import natural gas as an emergency measure.

(c) Both items below are from en.wikipedia.org.
(i) compressed natural gas (CNG; methane stored at high pressure, to less than 1 percent of the volume it occupies at standard atmospheric pressure; safer than gasoline, diesel and propane;
(ii) liquefied natural gas (LNG; The natural gas is condensed into a liquid at close to atmospheric pressure by cooling it to approximately −162 °C (−260 °F), to 1/600th the volume of natural gas in the gaseous state (at standard conditions for temperature and pressure)

(d)
(i) After investment of RMB 8 billion (€860 million) to build a MDI plant, BASF started production in 2015 -- a monomer used to make polyurethane.
(ii) A reason BASF built the MDI plant in Chongqing is due to Puguang gas field in Dazhou 达州['市境东接重庆市': zh.wikipedia.org]普光气田 (natural gas discovered in 2006; production began in 2007; source of Sichuan-Shanghai gas pipeline 川气东送).
(iii) force majeure (n; Did You Know?)
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/force%20majeure
(iv) spandex
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spandex
(is a polyether-polyurea copolymer; The name "spandex" is an anagram of the word "expands")

is a generic name. Lycra is a trademark, of DuPont, which formed a subsidiary (Invista) in 2003 from its textile fibers division and sold the subsidiary (including Lycra) in 2004 to Koch Industrie,
(v) MDI = methylene diphenyl diisocyanate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methylene_diphenyl_diisocyanate
(MDI reacts with polyols in the manufacture of polyurethane)

* The methylene chemically is :CH2 -- right in the center of MDI.