China has started construction on a gas pipeline from the west China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region to the south China's Guangdong Province, China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) told Xinhua on Friday.

The eastern part of the second west-east gas pipeline, was approved by the country's State Council, or Cabinet, on November 12. Construction started on December 11 and 12 at four sites in the provinces of Henan, Hubei, Jiangxi and Guangdong.

The pipeline will stretch 2,477 kilometers from Zhongwei, in the western part of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, to Guangzhou, capital of the southern Guangdong Province and cost 93 billion yuan (US$13.6 billion).

Construction on the western section from Zhongwei to Khorgos in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, began in February, and is expected to be finished by 2009.

The pipeline will be linked with a Central Asia gas pipeline currently under construction at the end of 2009 and operational in 2011.

The capacity of the pipeline will be 30 billion cubic meters per year. It will be mainly supplied by the Central Asia gas pipeline.

After the pipeline is put into use, the proportion of natural gas in China's primary energy consumption will probably be increased by one to two percent.

That will also help save 76.8 million tonnes of coal a year, which will cut emissions of carbon dioxide by an estimated 130 million tonnes a year, sulfur dioxide by 1.44 million tonnes, and dust 660,000 tonnes, the company said.

Gas will be transmitted to the eastern, southern and middle part of the country as well as the regions the pipeline runs through.

(Xinhua News Agency December 19, 2008)