Against this background, main contributions of this study are as
follows: 1) Logistic modelling approach is used to extend the current modelling system for medium- to long-term natural gas
consumption forecasting in China and to some extent, has achieved
this objective with reasonable accuracy. 2) In order to further
enhance the forecasting precision and better capture the historical
trend of the natural gas consumption, Levenberg–Marquardt optimization
strategy has been developed to optimally estimate the
intrinsic parameters of the logistic model. In addition, natural gas
forecasting studies conducted by the national and international
organizations and scholars are introduced to substantiate the
robustness of the model used in this study.