The construction of the second domestic oil pipeline linking China and Russia has started, China's National Petroleum Corp., the country’s biggest oil and gas producer, announced on Monday.

The project starts from the Chinese border city of Mohe and ends in China's northeastern city of Daqing. It will run parallel to an existing spur off of Russia’s East Siberia-Pacific Ocean crude pipeline. The 940 kilometer line can have an annual capacity of 15 billion metric tons of crude. It is expected to be completed by the end of 2017, and put to operation on January 1, 2018.