China, Russia plan gas pipeline in Xinjiang (chinanews.cn) Updated: 2006-07-05 17:08 China and Russia plan to
build a pipeline in Altay in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region to transport the
natural gas from Russia to the coastal areas of east China.
Communist Party Secretary of the Altay region Li Xianglin said that China and
Russia were pushing their cooperation in the energy field. The Russian Natural
Gas Industry Co., Ltd., the largest company of this kind in the world, had held
business talks with China for pipeline construction. The final version of the
negotiation agreement had been handed over to the Xingjiang Transportation
Bureau and local government for approval. The agreement could be signed very
soon.
He said that the Russian Natural Gas Industry Company would build two
pipelines to China, through which 68 billion cubic meters of gas will be
transmitted from Russia to China every year. The pipeline in the western part
will go through West Siberia in Russia to Altay, and then connect to the
pipeline of the west-to-east natural gas transmission project that stretches all
the way to the coastal areas in China.
Li predicted that construction of the pipelines would bring unprecedented
opportunities to the local economy in Xinjiang. The pipeline in the western part
would probably become the main transmission line, since the natural gas fields
in West Siberia were close to the existing natural gas infrastructure, and gas
resources could be shipped in a short time. It is expected that the pipeline in
the western part will transmit 30 billion cubic meters of gas every year.
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