SINGAPORE/LONDON- Privately controlled gas distributor China Gas Holdings aims to supply five million tonnes of liquefied natural gas from 2027 into China via a new trading venture with commodities trader Vitol, a company executive told Reuters.

Independent Chinese gas firms are set to make waves in the global market with plans to invest tens of billions of dollars in receiving facilities and double imports of the superchilled fuel in the next decade.

China Gas and Vitol announced last week a 50-50 joint venture in Singapore to trade LNG, the second of its type that pairs a western commodities trader with a local gas distributor, following the tie-up between Glencore and Zhejiang Energy Group in 2018.

China, which this year overtook Japan as the world's largest LNG buyer, sees natural gas as a key bridge fuel to replace coal along its journey to reach carbon neutrality by 2060.

The announcement came a day after China Gas, one of the country's largest independent piped-gas distributors, entered a framework agreement with Beijing Gas Group in LNG procurement and distribution.

Backed by the municipal government of the Chinese capital city, state-run Beijing Gas Group is building an LNG receiving terminal with annual capacity of 5 million tonnes in the northern port city of Tianjin, near Beijing, that is scheduled for completion around end-2022.

"We're still finalizing the details of the JV, but the idea is for the venture to supply China through the Tianjin terminal," said Frank Li, a vice president of China Gas.

Vitol, one of the world's top LNG traders that moved 10 million tonnes of the fuel last year, brings its deep global trading expertise, Li added.

Just a few years ago, China Gas was mulling an investment in a receiving terminal along China's coast, but dropped the idea to focus on expanding trading that would allow the firm to leverage its vast domestic distribution network and "stay light on fixed assets", said Li.

The venture, which Li expected to start running next year, aims to supply a minimum 800,000 tonnes of LNG into China in 2023, rising to over a million tonnes the following year before reaching 5 million tonnes in five years' time, he said.

China Gas sold 31.2 billion cubic meters, or about 23 million tonnes of natural gas in the financial year ended March 31, 23% higher than a year earlier, the firm said in its investor brief last week. That was equivalent to roughly 10% of China's total gas demand.

That included 3.37 million tonnes of LNG, a volume more than double the year-ago level as China Gas expanded its trading using terminals run by energy infrastructure firm PipeChina.

China Gas said it aimed to further raise the LNG turnover to 4.5-5 million tonnes in the new financial year of 2021/22.

(Editing by Gavin Maguire & Shri Navaratnam) ((aizhu.chen@thomsonreuters.com; Reuters Messaging: aizhu.chen.reuters.com@reuters.net))