The trunk line of the world’s longest natural gas pipeline, or main line of China’s second west-to-east natural gas pipeline, went into operation on
The pipeline, connecting central Asia and China, will deliver natural gas from Turkmenistan to as far afield as Shanghai in eastern China and Guangzhou and Hong Kong in southern China.
Once completed, the entire pipeline will be about 8,700 kilometers long.
The pipeline will have one trunk and eight branches. Three branches have been completed and the other five will be finished next year.
The pipeline starts in Huoerguosi on the China-Kazakhstan border, 670 kilometers northwest of Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. The annual natural gas transportation capacity of the pipeline is expected to be 30 billion cubic meters. It is designed to provide stable gas supplies for at least 30 years.
Guo Xiaofang, a primary school teacher and Guangzhou resident, hopes she can soon use natural gas from the pipeline instead of liquid gas. “Natural gas is clean and safe, and more convenient than liquid gas,” Guo said.
Liao Yongyuan, deputy general manager of the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), said the project would optimize the country’s energy consumption structure.
As of May 28, the already finished lines had delivered 10 billion cubic meters of natural gas to about 18 provincial regions, Liao said.
The pipeline will benefit about 500 million people altogether, he said.
It is expected to help ease strained natural gas supplies both in the Pearl River Delta and the Yangtze River Delta. There are also plans for it to be connected with natural gas lines already in use, resulting in a network totaling 40,000 kilometers of gas pipelines.
The pipeline will also be connected with the country’s key natural gas bases to ensure about 15 billion cubic meters of emergency supply resources, said Xu Yongfa, director of the CNPC Economics and Technology Research Institute.
Xinhua