OREANDA-NEWS. November 25, 2014. Natural gas import to China through the China-Central Asia Gas Pipelines had exceeded 100 billion cubic meters (bcm), China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) announced.  

As a part of major developments for the "Silk Road Economic Belt", the China-Central Asia Gas Pipelines have a further three lines in production. The construction of Line D started in September this year.

The 1,000-kilometer long Line D, one of China's major energy cooperation projects in central Asia, will run from Turkmenistan across Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan to China, with an expected delivery capacity of 30 bcm of natural gas every year.

Cao Yaming, general manager of CNPC's central Asia gas pipelines, said investment in Line D had hit 6.7 billion U.S. dollars and the project would be completed by the end of 2020, when the annual equivalent weight of oil and natural gas imports will stand at 90 million tonnes.

CNPC so far has transported 70 million tonnes of crude oil and 10 bcm of natural gas back to China, and created tens of thousands of jobs in the countries the pipelines travel through.