China expands resale of LNG cargoes, with 2025 estimates (report)
Chinese companies resold between 17 and 19 million tonnes of LNG in 2025 alone, according to a report by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, with 8.4 million tonnes of the resold volumes carried on vessels chartered from Chinese firms. Most of the resold cargoes were Australian or American, and most went to South Korea, Japan and the Netherlands. Chinese companies earned $4.6 billion from reselling Australian and American LNG between 2021 and 2025, while China's LNG imports fell from a peak of 79 million tonnes in 2021 to 66 million tonnes in 2025.
Why it matters: The shift turns the world's largest LNG importer into a competing seller, altering global energy trade flows and adding to the oversupply expected as new liquefaction capacity starts up.