China’s push to reduce air pollution in its cities resulted in a 27% increase in gas imports last year, to a record amount of 68.57 million tonnes. The surge comes at the expense of coal, which Chinese authorities have been encouraging industry and householders to burn less of. The transition was not entirely smooth – additional imports of LNG were required because national production and distribution infrastructure could not always cope, and some household boilers had not been converted to fire gas before the supply of coal was reduced. The additional imports pushed Asian gas prices up to their highest level in three years, and they may continue to rise if the government keeps up the push, to the extent that China may overtake Japan as the world’s largest buyer of natural gas.