(Adds LNG spot price reference)
By John Benny
March 6 (Reuters) - Chevron Corp (NYSE:CVX) CVX.N said on Tuesday itexpected supply shortage in the global liquefied natural gas(LNG) market by around 2025, echoing comments made last month bytop LNG trader Royal Dutch Shell RDSa.L .
Demand for natural gas, which burns cleaner than coal andoil, has surged as countries such as China look to curbenvironmental pollution.
Chevron, owner of the giant Gorgon and Wheatstone LNGprojects in Australia, said it expects global demand to benearly 600 million metric tonne per annum (mmtpa) by 2035, whilesupply could be just about half of that.
"China's demand is increasing significantly - they've had avery active program to move off of coal in heating industrialapplications, and that's pulled on LNG," Pierre Breber, EVP-downstream at Chevron, said during the company's analyst day,when asked about spot LNG prices.
China imported record levels of LNG in January, as theworld's second-largest economy shored up supplies ahead of theLunar New Year celebrations.
Shell in February estimated that more than $200 billion ofinvestments in LNG is needed to meet the boom in demand by 2030.
The global LNG market is set to continue its rapidexpansion into 2020 as facilities approved for construction inthe first half of the decade come on line.
However, a decline in spending in the sector since 2014 willcreate a supply gap from the mid-2020s unless new investmentsemerge, Shell said in its 2018 LNG Outlook.