The contract, expected to be done in July, is important to the success of its massive West-to-East pipeline project, which cost nearly 20 billion dollars.

Under this contract, users are required to pay for an agreed volume of gas, regardless of whether they consumer all of it. Gas use by the two buyers would rise gradually to reach a full contract volume of about three billion cubic metres by 2007.

PetroChina forecasts it will supply eight billion cubic meters of gas in 2005 against the pipeline's designed capacity of 12 billion a year.

(cri.com June 27, 2003)