China plans new West-East gas pipeline

CHINA: China is planning a fourth gas pipeline linking its resource-rich western region and the energy-hungry industrial belt in the south and east, state media reported Friday.

“The fourth West-East gas pipeline is being planned,” the China Securities Journal said, citing an unnamed source with China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC), the country’s largest oil and gas producer.

“The gas will probably come from new developments in the Tarim Basin,” the source said, referring to the country’s largest gas production base in the northwestern region of Xinjiang.

The new pipeline will possibly end in the country’s eastern and southern provinces, the report said, citing another unnamed CNPC source.

No further details were given.

The Tarim Basin has proven gas reserves of more than a trillion cubic metres (35 trillion cubic feet), the report said, adding that one of its gas fields, with annual output of four billion cubic metres, will start production at the end of this month.

The first West-East gas pipeline, also serving Tarim, was completed in 2004 and delivers 12 billion cubic metres of gas annually. Construction is under way to expand capacity by five billion cubic metres, the report said. A second pipeline will come online in 2011 with an annual capacity of 30 billion cubic metres while the third line is still on the drawing board. Both will transport gas Central Asia, it said.

The report said China will build 50,000 kilometres (31,000 miles) of gas and oil pipelines in the next 10 years at a cost of about 50 billion dollars.

Beijing, Friday, AFP