Information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that consumption of Electricity increased by 17.3% over the previous quarter to 1.12 billion kWh in the third quarter of 2010 upon the hot Summer weather. Electricity consumption by Households surged by 34.2% to 250 million kWh, and that by the Business sector increased by 12.8% to 819 million kWh (Gaming sector shared 46.3%). Meanwhile, local generation of Electricity reached 375 million kWh, up notably by 65.6% quarter-to-quarter; imports of Electricity increased by 9.7% to 839 million kWh, accounting for 69.9% of the total available supply. For the first three quarters of 2010, local generation of Electricity decreased by 37.3% year-on-year to 806 million kWh, while imports (2.183 billion kWh) and consumption (2.817 billion kWh) of Electricity increased by 41.2% and 6.6% respectively. Imports of Natural Gas for electricity generation increased further to 55.86 million cubic metres in the third quarter, soaring by 88.9% from the previous quarter. For the first three quarters of 2010, imports of Natural Gas totalled 112 million cubic metres, up by 41.4% year-on-year. In the third quarter of 2010, consumption of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) decreased by 15.9% quarter-to-quarter to 8,406 tonnes, of which consumption by Households (2,562 tonnes) and the Business sector (5,795 tonnes) fell by 22.9% and 12.5% respectively. Meanwhile, imports of LPG decreased by 17.3% from the previous quarter to 7,685 tonnes, with the average price of imports dropping by 2.5% to MOP7.57 per kg. For the first three quarters of 2010, imports of LPG (29,344 tonnes) increased by 3.7% year-on-year. In addition, the average price of Bottled LPG and Centralized LPG decreased by 8.1% and 7.3% respectively quarter-to-quarter on account of lower prices of import; however, the average price increased by 5.3% and 5.0% respectively year-on-year. At the end of the third quarter, stock of LPG (2,288 tonnes), Fuel Oil (19.69 million litres) and Gas oil & diesel (23.93 million litres) registered quarter-to-quarter decrease of 23.6%, 15.7% and 0.5% respectively.
