02-11-2008, 03:10 PM
<b>Here is the latest from Plaats - usually it is a Subscription Site :</b>
[center]<b><span style='font-size:21pt;line-height:100%'>China completes plan to build second phase west-east gas pipeline</span></b>[/center]
<b>Hong Kong (Platts)--17Jan2008
<span style='color:blue'>Chinese state oil giant China National Petroleum Corporation has finalized plans for construction of China's second west-east natural gas pipeline, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported Wednesday.</span></b>
Hou Chuangye, vice general manager of the PetroChina Natural Gas and Pipeline Company, part of CNPC, was quoted by Xinhua as telling the China LNG Conference 2008 this week that the project required an estimated investment of Yuan 143.49 billion ($19.66 billion).
<b><span style='color:red'>The second west-east trunk line will run for 4,945 km (3,070 miles) from Khorgos in northwestern China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, then eastward to Gansu province, where it will converge with the currently operational first west-east pipeline. It will then turn southeast through Shanxi, Henan, and Jiangxi provinces to end in Guangzhou, capital city of southern China's Guangdong province.
The new pipeline system, consisting of one trunk line and eight sub-lines, is expected to be officially launched in 2010 with a designed natural gas transmission capacity of 30 Bcm/year (1.06 Tcf/year). CNPC's president Jiang Jiemin said last year that gas for the new system will come from Turkmenistan.</span></b>
"The second phase pipeline project was originally planned to be built from 2010, but now it has been moved forward because China's demand for natural gas has been growing fast," a CNPC official said earlier.
China's demand for natural gas is expected to reach 100 Bcm in 2010, while domestic output was predicted to be around 80 Bcm in the year, Xinhua said.
The existing 4,000 km west-east natural gas pipeline, launched in October 2004, runs eastward from Xinjiang to Shanghai, where it terminates. It consists of a 17 Bcm/year western section and a 12 Bcm/year eastern section. The eastern section is undergoing an expansion program to increase its transmission capacity to 17 Bcm/year by 2010.
<b>TURKMENISTAN GAS</b>
Under agreements reached in 2006, Turkmenistan is to deliver 30 Bcm/year (2.9 Bcf/day) of natural gas via a pipeline to China for 30 years. The 7,000 km route will run from gas fields on the right bank of Amu Darya river in the east of the country through Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan to Korgas in China's northwestern frontier Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
The gas deal signed between Turkmenistan and CNPC in 2006 also provides for Turkmen and Chinese companies to carry out joint exploration and development of deposits and fields on the right bank of Amu Darya under a production sharing agreement.
The 30 Bcm/year of supply which Turkmenistan has committed will be made up of 13 Bcm/year of production from CNPC's PSC area, and another 17 Bcm/year of gas resources that the Turkmen government has promised to develop and deliver to China.
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