The Sino-Kazak Pipeline has piped more than 20 million tonnes of crude oil from Kazakhstan to China since it became operational in 2006, according to the regional government of Xinjiang.

Last year, the pipeline carried 7.73 million tonnes of crude oil into China, up 26 percent year-on-year, the inspection and quarantine bureau in the northwestern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region said in a press release Monday.

The volume makes up about 4 percent of the country's crude imports, which is estimated at around 204 million tonnes last year.

The Sino-Kazak pipeline runs 2,798 kilometers from Atasu in Kazakhstan to the country's largest oil refinery plant in Dushanzi, in Xinjiang, via the Alataw Pass.

It was jointly developed by the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) and the Kazakh state energy company, Kazmunaigaz, and is designed to transport 20 million tonnes a year.

It has linked China with the oil fields of the Caspian Sea and helped ease China's reliance on the Strait of Malacca, a traditional route for 80 percent of the country's imported oil.

Last year, China's reliance on foreign oil for the first time topped 50 percent.

(Xinhua News Agency January 25, 2010)