Dec. 15 – Chinese President Hu Jintao and three Central Asian leaders inaugurated China’s first transnational gas pipeline yesterday.
The China-Central Asia natural gas pipeline is 1,833 kilometers in length and will transport 40 billion cubic meters of natural gas to China yearly in the next 30 years to supplement its burgeoning energy needs. It will give China access to Central Asian fuel supplies that bypasses Russia. The ceremony was held in the border town of Turkmenbat, Turkmenistan. The country has the fourth largest natural gas reserve in the world with estimated supplies at 8.1 to 8.7 trillion cubic meters.
Xinhua reports that President Hu and Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev and Uzbek President Islam Karimov together officially turned on the flow of natural gas in the gas plant on the right bank of the Amu Darya River.
The gas pipeline will begin in Turkmenistan, pass through Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan and end at Horgos located in the northwest region of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. From Xinjiang, the pipeline will funnel natural gas to big Chinese cities like Shanghai, Guangzhou and Hong Kong.
