China isn't importing any US LNG, but it's still in the game

China this month marks a year since it last imported liquefied natural gas from the US amid a tense trade war between the world's two largest economies.

Yet throughout the past year, Chinese firms have continued purchasing US LNG under long-term supply contracts with American producers. Instead of delivering the super-chilled fuel home, they have often diverted it to Europe, where demand has surged in recent years.

This apparent disconnect between politics and commerce highlights how deeply intertwined US and Chinese energy systems remain, despite efforts by Washington and Beijing to decouple their economies as they compete for global influence.

It also underscores the growing flexibility and liquidity of the global LNG market, which has expanded rapidly in recent years, driven in large part by explosive growth in the United States. The US became the world's largest LNG exporter in 2023, overtaking Qatar.

Since 2018, Chinese energy companies including PetroChina, CNOOC and Unipec have signed nearly 20 LNG supply contracts with US producers such as Cheniere Energy, Venture Global and NextDecade, totalling around 25 million metric tonnes of supply per year, according to data from the Center on Global Energy Policy.

Most of these long-term contracts, which underpin the financing of multi-billion-dollar LNG projects along the US Gulf Coast, run for 20 or 25 years.

The US exported nearly 110 million tonnes of LNG last year, accounting for more than a quarter of global supply. China, the world's largest LNG importer, bought 4.3 million tonnes of US LNG in 2024, around 5% of total American exports that year, according to data from analytics firm Kpler.

Trade Tensions

China last imported a cargo of US LNG in February 2025, shortly after the two countries entered a new round of tit-for-tat tariffs.

US President Donald Trump imposed a 10% tariff on Chinese imports on 10 February. Beijing responded with a raft of countermeasures, including a 15% levy on US LNG imports. The two sides went on to raise reciprocal tariffs in the following months before agreeing on a "trade truce" in November.

While China halted imports of US LNG, it has continued buying significant volumes of ethane, a petrochemical feedstock. Chinese ethane imports averaged 325,000 barrels per day in 2025, accounting for more than 60% of total US ethane exports. It last imported US crude oil in April 2025, according to Kpler.

Trump has sought to establish US "energy dominance" by expanding domestic oil and gas production, often using America's vast resource base as leverage in trade negotiations.

Washington and Beijing are now preparing for a possible visit by Trump to China in April, which could help ease some of the trade tensions.

For now, however, China is unlikely to resume LNG imports from the US at scale, according to Anne-Sophie Corbeau, a research scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy.

"Chinese companies can still make money and trade US LNG," Corbeau said. "China has access to ample LNG supplies, notably growing volumes from Qatar and Russia."

Flex Buying

Most US LNG supply contracts allow buyers full flexibility to ship and sell cargoes anywhere in the world or to resell them to third parties such as trading houses. This contrasts with many other LNG suppliers, including Qatar, which often impose strict destination clauses.

The five main Chinese buyers of US LNG - PetroChina, ENN Natural Gas, CNOOC, Sinochem and Sinopec- chartered a combined 3.3 million tonnes of LNG from US export terminals in the 12 months to February, according to Reuters calculations based on Kpler data.

The vast majority of those cargoes were delivered to Europe.

For example, of the 27 cargoes chartered by PetroChina since February 2025, 23 were delivered to Europe, two to Brazil and two to Bangladesh. Similarly, all 10 cargoes chartered by ENN were delivered to Europe, according to Reuters analysis.

Many other cargoes were likely sold to other buyers before loading.

China's total LNG imports fell 14% in 2025 from a year earlier to 67 million tonnes, reflecting slower industrial activity, rapid expansion of renewable energy, higher domestic gas production and increased pipeline gas imports from Russia.

China also began importing LNG last August from Russia's Arctic LNG 2 project, in defiance of US sanctions.

Political and economic tensions between Beijing and Washington are likely to remain a defining feature of global trade for years. As a result, China may seek to limit its exposure to US energy.

But its involvement in US LNG is unlikely to disappear.