China's crude oil imports via Alataw Pass, a leading land port
on the China-Kazakhstan border, totaled a record 3 million tons
last year, 2.3 times the 2005 figure.
The newly opened Sino-Kazak oil pipeline alone piped 1.7 million
tons of crude oil into China, surpassing 2005's total oil imports
of 1.3 million tons via Alataw Pass, said sources with the
entry-exit inspection and quarantine bureau of northwestern
Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
An additional 1.3 million tons of crude oil was imported via
Alataw Pass by railway, the only means of oil import in the border
area before the crossborder pipeline became operational last
May.
The 962-km pipeline from Atasu in Kazakhstan to the Alataw Pass
was completed in Nov. 2005 at the cost of US$700 million. It was
designed to transmit 20 million tons of oil a year, 15 percent of
China's total crude oil imports for 2005.
The first phase of the pipeline will transmit 10 million tons of
oil a year, a figure that will double when the entire project is
completed in 2011.
China's crude oil imports are estimated at around 140 million
tons in 2006, up 10.2 percent from the previous year and accounting
for 48 percent of the country's total demand for crude oil.
(Xinhua News Agency January 10, 2007)