Russia’s liquefied natural gas exports to China hit a new record high in November.
Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports to China reached a new record high of 1.299 million tonnes in September 2025, up from 751,000 tonnes a year earlier and well above the previous record of 1 million tonnes set in July 2023, data from China’s General Administration of Customs (GACC) showed.
Russia remained China’s third largest LNG supplier in September, behind Australia with 2.127 million tonnes and Qatar with 1.453 million tonnes.
Russia exported 2.066 million tonnes of the 2.765 million tonnes of LNG it produced in September to the largest Asian buyers – China, Japan and South Korea.
Large-scale LNG is produced in Russia by Sakhalin Energy (owned by Gazprom, Mitsui and Mitsubishi), Yamal LNG (owned by Novatek , TotalEnergies , and China’s CNPC and SRF), Gazprom LNG Portovaya and Cryogas-Vysotsk.
Russia’s total gas exports to China, including pipeline gas and LNG, rose 37% year-on-year to 4.078 billion cubic meters in September.
China’s LNG imports fell 12% year-on-year to 5.76 million tonnes in September. With a fairly modest purchase volume dynamic, China has been the global leader since May, having overtaken Japan. Amid the growth of pipeline gas imports, which have begun to directly compete with expensive LNG, its share of imports has decreased considerably. There has been a year-on-year decline every month since last fall.
Re-exports of LNG from China fell to less than one percent of imports, as not a single large shipment was resold and all transactions were limited to small-scale activity and bunkering.
China gets gas by pipeline from five countries: Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Myanmar. The country imported a total of 5.215 bcm of natural gas by pipeline in September, which was up 1% from 5.187 bcm a year earlier.
September appears distinct in gas statistics, as hot weather is passing while cold weather is still a while away, and scheduled maintenance is done on import pipelines, so for objective reasons imports fall compared to the months just before and after.
China’s overall imports of pipeline gas and LNG fell 7.3% to 12.713 bcm in September from 13.71 bcm a year earlier.