The ceremony for the test run of the Shanghai Petroleum and Natural Gas Exchange [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

The Shanghai Petroleum and Natural Gas Exchange (SHPGX), a national-level trading center akin to the Shanghai Energy Exchange and Shanghai Gold Exchange, has started trading in Lujiazui, Shanghai, on July 1.

The center is a platform for spot trading of natural gas, unconventional gas, liquefied petroleum gas, petroleum and other energy products. It adopts a membership system, under which any domestic or foreign member dealer can trade commodities at a listed price or through bidding.

Apart from being the first online trade platform for natural gas and shale gas, the SHPGX is also the first platform, which sees China's three oil and gas giants, China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), the Sinopec Corp and the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC), operating on the same exchange, according to Guo Xu, the chief at SHPGX's construction working panel.

With a registered capital of 1 billion yuan ($159.7 million), the trade center was founded in March 2015 under a strategic alliance between the Xinhua News Agency and the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the nation's top economic planner. It involves 10 enterprises, including China's three major oil and gas giants.

The trading center established an oil and gas trade and settlement platform as well as an online service system. Positioning itself as a gas trading hub for China, SHPGX also aims to develop into an Asia-Pacific oil and gas pricing and trading center in the future, said Yu Shaoliang, the vice-publisher of Xinhua News Agency at the launching ceremony.

Edited by Mevlut Katik