West–East Gas Pipeline

The West–East Gas Pipeline (Chinese: 西气东输) is a set of natural gas pipelines which run from the western part of China to the east.

PetroChina Pipelines is a subsidiary (72.26%) of PetroChina that managed the first three pipelines of the project.

The construction of the West–East Gas Pipeline started in 2002. The pipeline was put into trial operation on 1 October 2004, and the full commercial supply of natural gas commenced on 1 January 2005. The pipeline is owned and operated by PetroChina West–East Gas Pipeline Company, a subsidiary of PetroChina. Originally, it was agreed that PetroChina would have owned 50% of the pipeline, while Royal Dutch Shell, Gazprom, and ExxonMobil had been slated to hold 15% each, and Sinopec 5%. However, in August 2004, the Board of Directors of PetroChina announced that following good faith discussions with all parties to the Joint Venture Framework Agreement, the parties had not been able to reach an agreement, and the joint venture framework agreement was terminated.

The 4,000 kilometres (2,500 mi) long pipeline runs from Lunnan in Xinjiang to Shanghai. The pipeline passes through 66 cities in the 10 provinces in China. Natural gas transported by the pipeline is used for electricity production in the Yangtze River Delta area. There is a plan to replace coal with gas in Shanghai by 2010. The capacity of the pipeline is 12 billion cubic metres (420 billion cubic feet) of natural gas annually. The cost of the pipeline was US$5.7 billion. By the end of 2007, the capacity was planned to be upgraded to 17 billion cubic metres (600 billion cubic feet). For this purpose, ten new gas compressor stations will be built and eight existing stations are to be upgraded.

The West–East Gas Pipeline is connected to the Shaan-Jing pipeline by three branch pipelines. The 886 kilometres (551 mi) long Ji-Ning branch between the Qingshan Distributing Station and the Anping Distributing Station became operational on 30 December 2005.

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