ENN, one of the country's largest independent gas distributors, is building the 3 million tonne-per-year import terminal at Zhoushan, Zhejiang Province.

It has secured about 1.47 million tonnes LNG supply under term deals with suppliers including Total, Origin Energy and Chevron Guangzhou Gas Group, a local govenrment-backed gas distributor and dominant supplier to Guangzhou, plans to build a 2 million-tpy receiving terminal at Guanzhou's Nansha port by 2020.

State-run Sinopec Corp will start operating its third terminal this year, Chen Bo, president of the company's trading vehicle Unipec, told an industry seminar this week.

Since the first LNG terminal in Guangdong province opened in 2006 China has become the world's third largest buyer of LNG after Japan and South Korea, operating a total of about 44 million tonnes of annual import capacity.