China Begins Work on Third West-East Gas Pipeline

Groundbreaking ceremony for the Third West-East Gas Pipeline was held in Beijing.

Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang congratulated on the occasion and sent his sincere regards to the constructors of the project. Chairman of National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) Zhang Ping, Deputy Chairman of NDRC and Chief of National Energy Administration Liu Tienan, Vice Chairman of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Kurax Mahsut, Vice Governor of Fujian Province Hong Jiexu, CNPC Chairman Jiang Jiemin, CNPC President Zhou Jiping and Vice President Liao Yongyuan attended the ceremony.

With a total length of 7,378 kilometers, the Third West-East Gas Pipeline consists of one trunk, eight branches, three gas storages and one LNG station. The 5,220 km-long trunk will start from Horgos in Xinjiang and end at Fuzhou of Fujian Province, through ten provinces and regions including Xinjiang, Gansu, Ningxia, Shaanxi, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Fujian and Guangdong.

With designed pressure of 10-12 Mpa and annual deliverability of 30 billion cubic meters, the pipeline is expected to be completed in 2015, joining Line C of the Central Asia-China Gas Pipeline which is also under construction now.

The Third West-East Gas Pipeline will transmit gas mainly from Central Asia and will utilize the incremental gas production in the Tarim Basin and coal gas in Xinjiang as supplementary gas source.

Completion of the project will further enhance gas supply in China, raising the share of natural gas in the country’s primary energy consumption by over one percent, and meanwhile cutting emissions of carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, dust and nitric oxide down by 130 million tons, 1.44 million tons, 660,000 tons, and 360,000 tons respectively each year.

[mappress]
LNG World News Staff, October 17, 2012; Image: CNPC