Posted on 12/29/2004 9:04:47 PM PST by maui_hawaii
China's West-East natural gas pipeline begins commercial operations today, according to officials involved in the project.
Petrochina, the state-owned oil giant, which operates the pipeline, said yesterday it had signed agreements with 12 new customers, bringing the total number of downstream gas customers for its cross-country pipeline to 40.
China's 4,000km pipeline is an ambitious undertaking to transfer natural gas from the Tarim Basin in Xinjiang province to China's eastern cities, including Shanghai.
Su Shulin, a senior official with the company, said he expected the pipeline to break even this year and record a profit next year.
He predicted the pipeline would be able to transmit 12bn cu m of natural gas by 2007.
Xu Dingming, head of the energy bureau of the National Development and Reform Commission, estimated that natural gas accounted for 2.7 per cent of China's total energy consumption but this would increase to 10 per cent by 2020.
BEIJING: China's longest pipeline a multibillion-dollar project aimed at bringing natural gas from the country's west to the booming east will officially open on Thursday, officials said.
The 4,000-kilometer (2,500-mile) West-East Gas Pipeline is expected to transport natural gas from the western Xinjiang region to energy-starved industrial cities on China's eastern seaboard.
"This project will generate both tremendous economic returns and great social benefits," said Xu Dingming, director of the Energy Bureau of the Cabinet's National Development and Reform Commission.
"Undoubtedly, it will become a milestone in the entire modernization drive of the country," he said at a news conference. Fully operating, the pipeline will begin operations from its terminus in the western Xinjiang region, bringing gas some 2,600 kilometers (1,600 miles) northwest to Shanghai and other nearby cities.
It will also help boost the flagging economy of the west, which Beijing has been pushing to develop in recent years.
The project could bring in revenue worth 1 billion yuan (US$120 million; euro89 million) to Xinjiang each year, the official Xinhua News Agency has said.
Su Shulin, vice chairman of PetroChina, which is overseeing the project, said the pipeline will be transporting 12 billion cubic meters of gas by 2007.
Construction on the US$5.2 billion (euro3.2 billion) line began in July 2002.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/975134.cms
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