China's main energy artery, the west-to-east gas pipeline, now supplies gas to more than 80 large and medium-sized cities across 12 provinces, the China News Service reports.

The pipeline is more than 4,000 kilometers long. It runs from Tarim in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region to Baihe in Shanghai on the east coast.

Sun Longde, President of the PetroChina Tarim Oilfield, says it transported 9.9 billion cubic meters of natural gas from the resource rich west to the energy hungry east in 2006.

The Tarim Oilfield is currently the second largest producer of natural gas in China. Sun Longde says the company aims to become the country's largest natural gas producer.

(Xinhua News Agency March 28, 2007)