China’s state planning commission has ordered eight Chinese regions to “regulate” surging gas prices amid winter heating demand and the switch to gas from coal, by meeting on Monday with natural gas producers, LNG terminal operators, and traders, Reuters reports, quoting an official at the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC). The eight regions are the leading natural gas producing regions Shaanxi, Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, and Sichuan, as well as the biggest gas-consuming regions Hebei, Jiangsu, Liaoning, and Beijing, according to the NDRC official who spoke to Reuters. The meetings to ‘regulate’ the prices should be a warning that the Chinese government could punish any market participants and companies that could be found to have manipulated the market or the prices, the official told Reuters. Ahead of the winter season, Chinese buyers of LNG had already pushed LNG prices higher as millions of Chinese households make the switch from […]