China will start building its second West-East natural gas pipeline in 2008, with gas transmission to come on stream in 2010, China National Petroleum Corporation, builder of the pipeline, said Monday.
The company, China's largest oil producer and the parent of PetroChina, also announced the preliminary route plan of the pipeline, which is expected to deliver 30 billion cubic metres (1,050 billion cubic feet) of gas a year.
The pipeline will transmit natural gas imported from central Asian countries such as Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan and produced in north-west China's Xinjiang region, according to a statement posted on the company's website.
It will go through 13 provinces and municipalities, extending to economic powerhouses along the coast, including Shanghai in the east and Guangdong province in the south, said the statement. Total length of the pipeline is over 7,000 kilometres (4,340 miles), with the main line being 4,859 kilometres long. Investment in the project is estimated to top 100 billion yuan (13.2 billion dollars), according to previous reports.
China is planning to extend its oil and gas pipelines by nearly 60 percent by 2010 in a bid to meet the country's rising demand for energy. In 2004, it completed its first West-East gas pipeline, one of the biggest energy projects in the country, linking Xinjiang and the industrialised eastern coast. Annual delivery has already reached 12 billion cubic metres.