Cleaner-fuel pipeline will take gas to the north

China Petroleum & Chemical Corp, the nation's second-biggest oil producer, has begun construction of a 1,045-kilometer pipeline to distribute natural gas in the north after a rise in demand for the cleaner-burning fuel.

The link will begin at Yulin in the northwestern province of Shaanxi and end at Jinan in the eastern province of Shandong, parent China Petrochemical Corp said yesterday.

The pipeline, to be completed in September 2010, will be able to transport 3 billion cubic meters of the fuel a year, it said.

China may need to rely on imports for 38 percent of its natural gas needs by 2010, Xie Dan, vice general manager of natural gas business at Sinopec, as China Petroleum is known, said. Gas will account for 8 percent of China's overall energy consumption by 2015, compared with 3.3 percent last year, according to Cui Yingkai, a director at PetroChina's gas and pipeline unit.

The pipeline will span four provinces -- Shaanxi, Shanxi, Henan and Shandong, Bloomberg News said.