June 5, 2012. Chinese gas demand is expected to double by 2015, but the failure to establish a competitive domestic gas pricing mechanism and improving existing gas import infrastructure could choke off growth in the world's fastest growing gas market, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said. China's natural gas demand reached 130 billion cubic metres in 2011, almost 5 percent of the country's total energy demand and its latest five year plan calls for an aggressive ramp up of gas use to 8.6 of total energy demand from 2011-2015. IEA forecasts China's demand will climb to 273 billion cubic metres (bcm) by 2017, up from 130 bcm in 2011-- an increase of 13 percent per year. That would rank China as the world's third-largest gas user behind the United States and Russia, the IEA said. China, the world's second largest economy, struggles to reconcile the price it pays for gas imports with its retail prices. According to the IEA, the average price of LNG imports almost doubled between 2009 and mid-2011 to around $8 per million British thermal units (mmBtu), which is much cheaper than Japan's imports, but higher than prices when China began importing LNG. Besides creating a more efficient domestic gas pricing system, China will need to ramp up construction and development of import infrastructure if it wants to attract supplies into the country, the IEA said.