There are plans to double the capacity of the first crude oil pipeline between Kazakhstan and China which opened in July, a manager close to the project said yesterday.

 

"The expansion is a key objective of our company and we plan to raise the line's current capacity from 10 million to 20 million tons per year," said Bakhtiyar Tokbayev, deputy director for commerce, Kazakhstan-China Pipeline LLP.

 

The company is a joint venture between KazTransOil JSC and the China National Oil and Gas Exploration and Development Corporation.

 

The Atasu-Alashankou pipeline extends from the Atasu Station in the Karaganda region in Kazakhstan to the Alashankou Metering Station in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in northwest China. The pipeline is 962 kilometers in length.  

 

It started operations in July and has so far transported 2 million tons of crude oil to China, Tokbayev said at the Third Sino-Russo-Kazakh Oil & Gas Forum in Shanghai.

 

He said the first phase of the pipeline cost US$800 million but couldn't say how much more the company would have to invest to double the capacity. Tokbayev said his company had still to decide whether to build more pump stations to quicken the flow or build a second line. The cost factor would depend on the decision.

 

Meanwhile a 252-kilometer oil pipeline linking Alashankou with Dushanzi in Xinjiang has been completed and operations should start soon.

 

An oil refinery and an ethylene plant are also being built in Dushanzi with a combined investment of 30 billion yuan (US$3.8 billion) and are due to be completed in 2008.

 

Last year China consumed more than 300 million tons of crude oil. This represents 8.5 percent of the world's total. It ranked second only to the United States.

 

In the same year China's net imports of oil stood at 136 million tons, of which about 50 percent came from the Middle East, 25 percent from Africa, 15 percent from Southeast Asia and 10 percent from Central Asia and Russia.

 

(China Daily December 8, 2006)