Macao's electricity consumption increases over 23% in 2007

MACAO, March 3 (Xinhua) -- As several large-scale tourism and gaming facilities entered operations, Macao saw its electricity consumption in 2007 surged by 23.1 percent over 2006, according to the official statistics released on Monday.

Information from the Statistics and Census Service indicated that in the fourth quarter of 2007, consumption of electricity rose by 22.9 percent year-on-year respectively, whereas that of fuel oil dropped by 15.1 percent.

Macao's Terrestrial Natural Gas Import and transmission System has begun to operate last month, and the natural gas imported is mainly for the generation of electricity. CEM (Macao Electricity Company) predicted that the volume of natural gas for this purpose would reach 90 million to 95 million cubic meters.

The natural gas transmitted through terrestrial pipes made its formal arrival at the beginning of 2008, which mainly comes from the liquefied natural gas stations in the neighboring Guangdong province.