The planned pipeline to deliver natural gas from Southwest China’s Sichuan Province to eastern China is progressing well,with the first section of its second line operational on Monday,China Media Group(CMG)reported.
The new section will add nearly 3 billion cubic meters of natural gas transmission capacity each year,per the report,a progress that analysts say will inject fresh momentum into the country’s energy structure optimization and economic development.
The pipeline serves as a major energy project under 14th Five-Year Plan(2021-25),and a key component of China’s backbone natural gas pipeline network—described as“four strategic corridors plus five vertical and five horizontal lines.”Its second line runs about 4,269 kilometers from Luzhou in Sichuan to Wenzhou in East China’s Zhejiang Province,the CMG report said.
The newly activated segment stretches 56.15 kilometers,starting from the Anyue gas field in Ziyang,Sichuan,and ending at the Tongliang compressor station in Southwest China’s Chongqing Municipality,per the report.
Natural gas from the Anyue gas field can now be fed into the pipeline running from Zhongwei in Northwest China’s Ningxia Province to Guiyang in Southwest China’s Guizhou Province,seamlessly linking with the national“one network”system,an official from the Chongqing branch of PetroChina’s Southwest Pipeline Company,the project developer,said.
“This provides a new channel for shipping natural gas resources from Sichuan and Chongqing to other regions,ensuring faster progress in building a production base with an annual output of 100 billion cubic meters of natural gas in the area,”the official noted.He added that it will also improve the efficiency of resource utilization in Chongqing and along the pipeline’s route.
The smooth launch of this section reflects Chinese efficiency and rapid implementation capability in major energy projects,Lin Boqiang,director of the China Center for Energy Economics Research at Xiamen University,told Global Times on Monday.
“This project not only enables more effective delivery of Sichuan’s natural gas to other regions represents a major step forward in enhancing national energy security and supply strategy,”Lin said.
Construction of the second part of the line began on September,2023.The project runs through Sichuan,Chongqing,Central China’s Hubei and Henan Province,East China’s Jiangxi,Anhui Province,Zhejiang and Fujian Province.It is being developed in two phases,with the western section covering Sichuan,Chongqing and Hubei,and the eastern section spanning Hubei to Fujian and Zhejiang,Xinhua News Agency reported earlier.
The newly operational pipeline will also connect with China’s West-East gas pipeline system,and the Jiangsu-Anhui line,linking natural gas from the southwest with coastal LNG resources and markets across central and eastern China,per Xinhua.
“Sichuan is rich in natural gas resources.Delivering these resources through pipelines to energy-hungry regions in central and eastern China helps ease imbalances in supply and demand while strengthening the scheduling capacity of the nationwide network,”Lin said.
Although a single project contributes only modestly to China’s total energy consumption,Lin stressed that interconnected pipelines can produce a cumulative effect,amplifying the overall impact on the national energy network.
Once fully operational,the entire pipeline to deliver natural gas from Sichuan to eastern China,will have an annual transmission capacity of 26 billion cubic meters,per Xinhua.The project is expected to improve living standards along the route,accelerate the shift in regional energy structures,and support high-quality growth of the Yangtze River economic belt.
In February,PipeChina announced that construction of the pipeline’s eastern section would be accelerated.Work on the western section began in 2023,and the entire project is scheduled for completion by 2027.
Natural gas,Lin noted,is the cleanest fossil fuel,aligning with China’s green and low-carbon development goals while also offering stability and cost efficiency.“Although its share in overall energy consumption remains relatively modest,it has strong potential for steady growth,”he said.
Since the start of the 14th Five-Year Plan,China’s oil and gas pipeline network has entered a new stage of physical interconnection and open,fair access,with the“one national network”accelerating its formation,according to CMG.
At present,China’s main oil and gas pipelines extend over 100,000 kilometers,with transmission capacity rising 76 percent from 2020 to March 2025,the CMG report said.By 2025,the national pipeline network will be further consolidated into a“five vertical and five horizontals”framework,strengthening the country’s ability to ensure stable oil and gas supplies.
