Just a month after oil major Royal Dutch Shell announced that it would acquire BG Group, the UK’s third largest energy company, for $70 billion in cash and stock, making it the biggest energy deal in a decade, Shell’s CEO Ben Van Beurden was off to China to convince regulators there that the deal did wouldn’t pose any risk to the country’s energy sector.

The deal, if approved by regulators in several countries, creates a company worth $263.9 billion that will impact the oil and gas industry across the globe. It will also make Shell the largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) producer in the world. Shell’s LNG sales will rise 80 percent by 2018 and the combined company will account for about 15 percent of the world’s traded LNG, according to Shell officials.

This is good news for Shell shareholders who are hedging on profits in the LNG sector over the long term. Shell rival ExxonMobil recently estimated that global LNG trade will more than triple through 2040, to nearly 100 billion cubic feet (bcf) a day, around 40% higher than current US gas output.

Though this is a positive development for Shell, it’s problematic for China since both BG and Shell LNG projects in Australia will export gas to China, while the combination of the two energy giants could cause antitrust problems. Gordon Kwan, Hong Kong-based head of regional oil and gas research at Nomura International, said that Van Beurden was not certain to succeed given the clout the enlarged company will have in the global market for LNG.

“The thing that could potentially tumble out of the closet is BG and Shell’s LNG projects in Australia, which export to China,” Kwan said. “They might have to divest some stake.” Bloomberg Business news said that Van Beurden will be aware that China’s antitrust authorities have challenged major natural resource deals on competition before.

Shell, for its part, is putting a positive spin on developments amid speculation over what Chinese regulators will do. “The deal is pro-competitive, and whilst we expect the usual thorough and professional review by the relevant antitrust and other regulatory authorities, we are confident that the deal will receive the necessary approvals,” Shell said in a statement last week.

However, in the mid to long term the affect of the Shell-BG Group on China’s LNG plans may actually not be as big a factor as analysts and energy pundits predict. While media has so far largely ignored this variable in the equation, the fact remains that two massive gas pipeline deals signed between China and Russia could more than offset any Shell LNG monopoly worries that Beijing might have.

Last May, Russia signed an estimated $400 billion gas supply deal to deliver 38 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas through the Power of Siberia pipeline (Eastern Route) to China. First gas is to be delivered in 2018. Also in early November, the two countries signed an estimated $300 billion preliminary deal for Russia to deliver 30 bcm of gas annually over 30 years from Western Siberia to North-Western China via the Altai Route, a proposed gas pipeline. The two deals combined would account for almost 17 percent of China’s gas consumption by 2020.

Keun-Wook Paik, senior research fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, said in December that the Altai gas agreement will have a greater impact on China’s LNG supply than the Power of Siberia deal which will mostly target the Bohai Bay market.

The Altai deal would wipe out 21 million tonnes per year of potential LNG imports into the Chinese market and significantly impact LNG suppliers’ plans that currently target the Chinese market, Paik said. He added that if China’s gas demand in 2030 is 550 bcm per year (of which 300 bcm per year is covered by China’s domestic supply and the remaining 250 bcm per year is covered by pipeline and LNG imports) it would be safe to say that Beijing’s preference will be to maximize pipeline gas supply rather than LNG supply.

Hopefully for Shell’s sake, Chinese energy planners will take these kind of projections into consideration in its decision. Peter Wang, at the Shanghai office of international law firm Jones Day, told media that antitrust approvals for a deal this size in China usually take at least six months.