The growing tensions between the US and China over some issues have added uncertainty in the bilateral LNG trade as Chinese importers are less confident to commit to more US LNG shipments. At the same time, oversupplied Asian markets and uneconomic arbitrage have already made US-China LNG trade difficult.
As a result, China will unlikely meet its pledge under the phase-one trade deal to tramp up purchases of US energy products, some analysts said. China's three big national oil companies: CNOOC, Sinopec, and Petrochina, said they were cautious about importing US LNG. They did not confirm applications for tariff waivers to purchase US LNG.
China reopened LNG trade with the US in April after stopping for about a year due to the trade war. Under the phase-one trade deal, Beijing also promised to ramp up imports of US energy products by $52 billion over 2020 to 2021. This implies that China needs to buy $2.1 billion of US energy products every month this year.
