China has agreed to buy $25 billion worth of liquefied natural gas over the next 25 years from the Malaysian national oil and gas company known as Petronas (short for Petroliam Nasional Berhad). The Chinese want to increase their use of natural gas in order to reduce their dependence on coal and oil, which cause more pollution than natural gas. Petronas will ship three million metric tons of the fuel each year to a terminal in Shanghai that is currently under construction. In other Malaysian business news, activists in that country protested a free trade agreement currently being negotiated between their country and the United States.