S China provinces to get Central Asia gas soon

BEIJING: Central Asian gas will reach southern China's Jiangxi and Hunan provinces soon as State-owned oil and gas major China National Petroleum Corp is set to put into operation more gas pipelines before the end of the year, the China Petroleum Daily reported on Wednesday.

This will increase gas supplies to central and southern regions, which were hit by severe gas shortages last winter.

The 1,869-kilometre trunk line from Ningxia to Jiangxi, as well as some branch pipes, is the eastern part of CNPC's second West-to-East Gas Pipeline Project that covers 8,700 kilometers in China and connects a gas pipe winding through Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.

The western part of the gas project from Xinjiang to Ningxia, with a trunk line length of 2,746 kilometers, started carrying Turkmenistan gas from late last year.

The whole line, with annual capacity of at least 30 billion cubic meters, is scheduled to become fully operational in 2011, when it will send gas to cities as far as Hong Kong in the south.
(source:chinadaily)