Nation's natural gas industry set for strong growth

During this transition period, GE believes the annual natural gas share of China's power market will triple by 2025, reaching 6 percent of the total generation and natural gas demand in the power sector will increase to 117 billion cubic meters, representing 30 percent of total demand in 2025.

This can explain why GE formed a joint venture with Huadian Corp, one of the country's top five power generators, in 2011, investing in equipment, technology and services for the distributed power generation business.

The company said it will support China's plan for more than 1,000 distributed energy combined heat and power plants by 2015.

Although it is essential for China's natural gas industry to embrace a future with soaring demand, consumption and investment, Immelt said there are also challenges for the country with the biggest one being pricing.

"Natural gas prices are artificially low, which has not created enough incentives for technology innovation in the industry," said Immelt.

Mark Hutchinson, president and CEO of GE Greater China, added that China can learn a lot from the United States, which allows the market to freely control the price in the shale gas sector, leading to great success.

Affected by the falling price of coal and increasing demand for natural gas, the government is actively carrying out measures to enlarge the natural gas supply, said Wang Xiaokun, an industrial analyst at Sublime China Information Co Ltd, a domestic commodities consultancy.

She said the technology for shale gas is not mature enough for large-scale production at the current stage.