BEIJING - China's apparent consumption of natural gas rose 20.4 percent year-on-year to 104.1 billion cubic meters in the first 10 months, driven by an increased demand for power, according to the country's top economic planner.

The apparent consumption of natural gas stood at 11 billion cubic meters in October, up 21.3 percent from last year, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said on its website.

The NDRC attributed the increase to high demands from chemical fertilizer production and electricity generation in the coastal provinces of Jiangsu and Zhejiang.

Meanwhile, natural gas output increased steadily over past 10 months, the NDRC said. The country produced 82.6 billion cubic meters of natural gas during the period, up 6.6 percent year-on-year.

Due to a higher comparison base, natural gas output rose just 3.1 percent year-on-year to 8.2 billion cubic meters in October, it noted.

Natural gas imports rose 86.5 percent year-on-year to 25 billion cubic meters over the January to October period, of which 12.3 billion cubic meters were imported from the China-Central Asia natural gas pipeline and 12.7 billion cubic meters came from the Jiangsu Rudong LNG projects, it added.

In October, natural gas imports doubled from last year to 3.1 billion cubic meters, it said.

Furthermore, natural gas reserves increased. The gas storage group of Dagang, a company owned by the country's oil giant PetroChina, had stocked 2.06 billion cubic meters of natural gas as of the end of October, an increase of 100 million cubic meters from a year earlier, the NDRC said.