West-east Pipelines Transfer 36 bln Cubic Meters of Gas in 2011

China's west-east gas pipelines transported 36 billion cubic meters of natural gas to 18 provincial-level areas in 2011, up 11.5 billion cubic meters from one year earlier, the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) said Monday.

By the end of last year, the Tarim Basin gas fields, China's main source of natural gas, had provided nearly 90 billion cubic meters of natural gas to 3,000 companies and millions of residents in more than 110 cities via the pipelines, the CNPC said in a statement on its website.

In November, China's second west-east natural gas transmission pipeline began transferring natural gas to the energy-starved Pearl River Delta. The second pipeline has already transported 16.14 million cubic meters of gas to south China's Guangdong province, according to the statement.

Composed of eight sub-pipelines and one major pipeline, the second west-east pipeline project starts in west China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region and reaches Shanghai in the east, as well as Guangzhou and Hong Kong in the south.

The pipeline can transmit 30 billion cubic meters of natural gas annually and has a minimum service life of more than 30 years.