The nation's biggest oil producer, PetroChina,
yesterday said it has obtained the government's final approval to
build two cross-China pipelines.
These will pump refined oil, such as gasoline and diesel, from
northeastern and northwestern areas to central China.
The two pipelines will start from Lanzhou, in northwest China's
Gansu Province, and Jinzhou, in northeast China's Liaoning
Province, and converge in Zhengzhou, in the central province of
Henan.
A further extension will reach Changsha, the capital city of
Hunan Province, south of Henan, PetroChina sources yesterday
said.
"We received final approval from the State Council a couple of
weeks ago to start building the two pipelines," said a senior
PetroChina official, who did not want to be identified.
Industry sources said central China is expected to suffer from
severe oil shortages, which could see it short of about 10 million
tons of refined oil products in 2010.
Beijing-based PetroChina will be the only builder and will
invest about 12 billion yuan (US$1.5 billion) in the construction,
Zhu Shihou, an official overseeing energy projects at the Henan
Development and Reform Commission, said.
The PetroChina official said it would take one or two years to
build the pipelines. "So we expect, as originally planned, to put
the two lines into operation by next year or in 2008," he said.
The pipeline from Lanzhou is expected to carry 8 million tons of
refined oil a year; the Jinzhou route is designed to have an annual
capacity of up to 4 million tons, local media reports said.
The pipelines will pump oil from refineries in northeastern and
northwestern regions, which will process crude oil imported from
Russia and Kazakhstan. This will arrive in China through
cross-border oil pipelines, the PetroChina official said.
China and Kazakhstan in December jointly announced the formal
opening of their first cross-border crude oil pipeline, which pumps
crude oil from the Central Asian country to Alashankou, in
northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
The Chinese-Kazakh pipeline will initially carry 10 million tons
of crude oil a year.
Another pipeline project is also under discussion between China
and Russia, which could transport about 30 million tons of crude
oil a year.
(China Daily January 19, 2006)