(Yicai) Dec. 4 -- Chinese energy companies have hiked their energy reserves to guarantee sufficient supplies as temperatures in multiple regions of China quickly dropped with the arrival of winter.

China Energy Investment Group has been producing an average of 530,000 tons of high-quality coal a day since the heating season began on Nov. 15, according to an insider at the state-owned energy firm.

China has adopted a centralized winter heating strategy, which provides free or heavily subsidized heating to the northern regions between Nov. 15 and March 15. Central and southern China does not have centralized heating.

The reserves of China’s power plants exceeded a record of 200 million tons of coal, which can be used for 33 days, Li Chao, deputy director of the Office of Policy Studies at the National Development and Reform Commission, said at a press briefing on Nov. 16. Supplies of natural gas have also steadily increased, he added.

China Oil and Gas Pipeline Network is expected to transport over 100 billion cubic meters of natural gas through its pipeline network during this heating season, Yicai learned from the company. The amount of gas produced domestically and imported through pipelines, as well as exported liquefied natural gas, will all increase this year, PipeChina added.

On Nov. 10, PipeChina’s LNG reception station in Tianjin welcomed a tanker with 136,000 cbm of LNG from Qatar and began export services, successfully interconnecting major pipelines, such as the China-Russia East-Route Natural Gas Pipeline and the Shaanxi-Beijing Pipelines, to guarantee the gas supply for the Beijing- Tianjin-Hebei region.

Shanghai-based Shenergy welcomed its first LNG tanker for this winter’s supply on Nov. 11. The firm renovated and reformed its pipelines, installed manual bypass valves to prevent them from freezing, thickened the insulation layers on equipment, and placed electric heat tracing on instrument boxes, a source at the state-owned company that supplies one-third of Shanghai’s electricity and over 95 percent of the city’s LNG told Yicai.

Editor: Futura Costaglione