Howard was speaking at the Boao Forum on China's Hainan Island, a meeting being billed as “an Asian Davos” that was also attended by senior Woodside and ChevronTexaco executives.
LNG deliveries to Guangdong will start in April next year, a few months earlier than originally planned, Howard said.
Australia will supply A$25 billion of the fuel over 25 years to the LNG terminal that China National Offshore Oil Corp, (CNOOC), is building in Shenzhen said CNOOC CEO Fu Chengyu.
Gas for the $600m Shenzhen LNG terminal will come from the North West Shelf consortium. NWS operator Woodside is also developing the Browse Basin, which contains natural gas reserves of 850 billion cubic meters, chief executive Don Voelte said during the forum.
China wants to more than double the share of its energy produced from gas to 8% by 2010 to cut pollution and reduce the country's reliance on coal and crude oil. The country's demand for gas may increase by as much as 9.5% annually during the next 15 years, according to Fu.
CNOOC's CEO Fu Chengyu told the forum that China's annual gas consumption is expected to reach up to 250 billion cubic metres by 2020. Half of the demand will be met by LNG imports, the China Daily reports.
Meanwhile the head of China’s top economic planning body said the country’s burgeoning fuel needs could lead to greater cooperation on energy investment with Australia, the People's Daily Online reports.
National Development and Reform Commission chairman Ma Kai told the forum that China was the world's biggest LNG market and the Asian giant could be part of developing LNG projects such as Woodside’s proposed Browse Basin hub and the ChevronTexaco-led Gorgon venture.
"We will further explore cooperation in projects such as Gorgon and Browse," said Ma.
"We are making progress. We pay special attention to co-operation with Australia as we have had successful co-operation before. We hope Australia cherishes the market opportunity and continues to deepen the co-operation," Ma said.
CNOOC CEO Fu Chengyu said Chinese participation in projects such as Browse would be helped by hastening free trade agreements between the two countries and by giving “more preferable terms” to foreign companies that want to invest in Australia’s upstream industry.
The Chinese players are keen to lock in price stability and avoid price rises such as the 71.5% iron ore cost hike recently agreed to between Rio Tinto and BHP and theirs Chinese customers.
These concerns have held up finalisation of a potential $30bn, 25-year deal between Gorgon and the southern Chinese province of Zhejiang.
Beijing has been pushing Canberra to help alleviate this financial pain, but the Australian government has said it will not get involved in such issues, and matters of price, supply and timing should be resolved between buyers and sellers.
However, Howard and Chinese President Hu Jintao did agree in Beijing on April 18 to start free-trade talks. Trade between the countries has tripled in the past six years to $24 billion.
