China Sets Schedule for Gas Pipeline ConstructionChina late this year will complete the gas field development plan for the construction of a 4,167-km gas pipeline from the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in the northwest to Shanghai Municipality in the east.According to Yan Sanzhong, deputy manager of the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), the pipeline will be built section by section in the 2001-2003 period and gas will be sent to the Yangtze River Delta in 2004. He said, the pipeline will be able to transport 12 billion cubic meters of gas to the Yangtze River Delta a year by 2005. The gas pipeline will run from the Tarim Oilfield in Xinjiang to Shanghai through nine provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions. It will cost 120 billion yuan (about 14 billion U.S. dollars). Operation of the pipeline will greatly ease the acute energy shortage in the Yangtze River Delta, Yan said at a recent national conference on western development. |
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