China, Russia plan gas pipeline in Xinjiang

China Daily: China and Russia plan to build a pipeline in Altay in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region to transport the natural gas from Russia to the coastal areas of east China.

Communist Party Secretary of the Altay region Li Xianglin said that China and Russia were pushing their cooperation in the energy field. The Russian Natural Gas Industry Co., Ltd., the largest company of this kind in the world, had held business talks with China for pipeline construction. The final version of the negotiation agreement had been handed over to the Xingjiang Transportation Bureau and local government for approval. The agreement could be signed very soon.

He said that the Russian Natural Gas Industry Company would build two pipelines to China, through which 68 billion cubic meters of gas will be transmitted from Russia to China every year. The pipeline in the western part will go through West Siberia in Russia to Altay, and then connect to the pipeline of the west-to-east natural gas transmission project that stretches all the way to the coastal areas in China.

Li predicted that construction of the pipelines would bring unprecedented opportunities to the local economy in Xinjiang. The pipeline in the western part would probably become the main transmission line, since the natural gas fields in West Siberia were close to the existing natural gas infrastructure, and gas resources could be shipped in a short time. It is expected that the pipeline in the western part will transmit 30 billion cubic meters of gas every year.