China's overseas gas pipeline network is nearing completion. Petro-China announced that a gas pipeline in Central Asia has begun construction in Bukhara in southern Uzbekistan. It will be the first international energy channel capable of delivering gas to China overland, symbolizing that China's planned energy network is turning into reality.

Covering 1,801 km, the Central Asian Gas Pipeline starts from the Turkmenistan-Uzbekistan border, passes through central Uzbekistan and southern Kazakhstan, and finally extends into China via Horgus in Xinjiang. The two-way parallel pipeline is being built by two separate joint ventures linking Petro-China with the Uzbekistan Gas Company, and the Turkmenistan Gas Company.

The pipeline is expected to begin one-way gas transmission in the end of next year, and two-way transmission by 2010. Within 30 years, about 30 billion cubic meters of gas will be transmitted to China annually, equivalent to half of China's 2007 domestic gas output.

For more details, please read the full story in Chinese (http://www.morningpost.com.cn/article.asp?articleid=136547#top).

(China.org.cn July 2, 2008)