China’s Sinopec gets approval for $20-billion West-East gas pipeline

By AIBING GUO
Bloomberg

China Petrochemical Corp., Asia’s biggest refiner, received government approval to build an 8,400-km (5,221-mile) pipeline network to connect gas fields in northwest China to southern and eastern provinces.

The project from Xinjiang to Guangdong will have an artery and six regional links, the company, known as Sinopec Group, said in an emailed statement Wednesday. Investment in the pipeline will be about 130 billion yuan ($20 billion). The statement didn’t mention a construction timeframe.

The network is designed to send gas produced from Sinopec Group’s Zhundong coal-to-gas project in Xinjiang to end users in populous eastern and southern provinces. It will also carry unconventional gas from coal-bed methane and shale gas projects in northwest China.

“China’s National Development and Reform Commission has officially approved our project,” Sinopec Group said in the statement. “The new pipeline will increase China’s natural gas supply and help meet central and eastern China’s increasing gas demands.” The NDRC is China’s top planning agency.

Sinopec Group’s coal-to-gas project in Xinjiang can produce 8 Bcm of gas a year, it said.

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