China has signed a long-awaited pact with Kazakhstan to build a multibillion-dollar pipeline to pump crude from the Central Asian nation and help the world's second-largest oil consumer secure its oil supply.
The 1,240-km (770-mile) transnational pipeline, China's first, would help it diversify its energy sources. The Asian economic powerhouse sources more than 60 percent of its crude oil imports from the volatile Middle East.
The land-locked ex-Soviet state, which exports most of its oil via Russia and expects annual output to triple to 150 million tonnes a year by 2015, is seeking new markets for its oil. The pipeline could boost its sale to China by eight times when the project is completed next year.
"To expand and deepen co-operation in areas of oil and natural gas is of strategic importance to the economic development of the two countries," the Xinhua news agency on Tuesday quoted a joint statement by the two countries as saying.
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