PetroChina has halted natural gas shipments to some downstream industrial users in North China this month to guarantee sufficient residential supplies, the National Business Daily reported Tuesday.

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Thanks to new pipelines, natural gas reserve and overseas LNG purchases, this year's gas shortage is not as severe as last year, the report said.

Cold weather strained natural gas supplies in the last days of January, but the gap between supply and demand is controllable, said an industry insider.

China consumed 107.2 billion cubic meters of natural gas in 2010, up 22.73 percent year-on-year, statistics from C1 Energy showed. The nation produced 95 billion cubic meters of natural gas and imported 12.2 billion cubic meters.