OREANDA-NEWS. June 07, 2012. The signing ceremony of investor cooperation framework agreement for national key projects No.3 West-East natural gas transmission project(referred to as the "No.3 West pipeline") was recently held in Beijing. The project is the largest project open to social capital by CNPC, introduced NCSSF, urban infrastructure industrial investment fund, and Baosteel Group Co., Ltd. as shareholders, which is the first time at home. Group Vice Chairman, and CPC party secretary Mr. Liu Guosheng, attended the signing ceremony.

It is reported that No.3 west pipeline is national key project approved by the State Council, and is the major backbone pipe network engineering project of the national energy including one trunk line, five branch lines, and three sub-lines with the scale of investment over one hundred billion yuan. The main line starts from west Khorgos Port in Xinjiang, to east Fuzhou City in Fujian Province, with a length over 5000 km, passing through more than 10 provinces and autonomous regions including Xinjiang, Gansu, Ningxia etc. The designed gas transmission capacity is 30 billion cubic meters annually with gas source from Central Asian countries, which is expected to be fully put into operation in 2015. By then, three West-East pipelines together with Shaanxi-Beijing No.1, No.2 pipeline, and Sichuan-East Gas Pipeline will compose comprehensive natural gas pipeline from east to west, south to north, which can stably reduce the natural gas demand pressure of domestic provinces, cities and regions in long-term.