【英语中国】中国上调天然气价格正当其时

A 25% hike for natural gas prices in China may look a bit drastic. In truth, it's long overdue.

This is the first increase for natural gas tariffs in two and a half years, and it won't be the last. Prices could float up to 10% higher still, the National Development and Reform Commission said when unveiling the higher prices late Monday.

But the move is evidence that Beijing is at last backing its goal of raising natural gas's role in Chinese energy consumption. The long-term plan is for gas's share to rise to 10% of energy consumption by 2020, from 3% now.

This'll happen as higher prices encourage sales by energy companies for which natural gas has been a pretty unprofitable business to date. Like their state-owned counterparts in India, the big Chinese oil firms have been selling natural gas at a loss because of Beijing's desire to keep prices low for consumers. New Delhi last week more than doubled prices for natural gas sold by state-owned firms to help improve returns, and now China's government is doing the same: Citi Investment Research expects full year earnings to improve by 7% and 3% respectively for PetroChina and Sinopec.

Demand, meanwhile, shouldn't wither just because of the hike. The low starting level of natural gas prices will remain well below those of substitute products. The inflationary impact won't be significant either, adding just $0.67 to a households' monthly costs on average, the NDRC said.

Encouragingly, this is further evidence of Beijing's gradual move towards allowing the market to set prices for energy. The Chinese government has already loosened control over domestic oil prices, referencing them to a basket of international oil prices since last year. These were cut by about 3% Monday in line with the recent drop in crude oil globally.

There's a way to go, but China is making steps towards more efficient energy markets.

中国将天然气价格上调25%看似幅度有点大，但实际上，天然气价格早就该调了。

这是两年半来中国天然气价格首次上调，也不会是最后一次。中国国家发改委周一晚些时候宣布上调天然气价格，并说有可能再次上调10%。

但调价举动表明，中国政府终于开始支持其提高天然气在国家能源消耗中地位的这一目标。中国的长期计划是到2020年，将天然气在能源消耗中的比例由目前的3%提高到10%。

因天然气一直是较为无利可图的一项业务，天然气价格上调对能源公司销售天然气构成鼓励，天然气的消耗比例也将上升。像印度国有天然气公司一样，中国大型石油公司的天然气业务一直处于亏损状态，因中国政府要保持天然气的消费价格处于低位。印度上周将国有公司出售的天然气价格上调一倍多以改善公司盈利。现在中国政府也采取了同样的举措。花旗投资研究(Citi Investment Research)预计，中石油(PetroChina)与中石化(Sinopec)的全年盈利将分别提高7%及3%。

而需求不会因价格上调出现萎缩。天然气价格起点较低，并将远低于其它替代性产品，也不会有实质性通胀影响，发改委称，每户月使用成本平均仅增加0.67美元而已。

令人鼓舞的是，这是中国政府逐步允许市场对能源进行定价进展的又一明证。中国政府已放松国内成品油价控制，自去年始将国内油价与国际一篮子油价挂钩。因近期国际原油价格下滑，周一中国成品油价下调了约3%。

尚需时日，不过中国正在向更高效的能源市场迈进。