China's Central Asia Imports up 13% in 2017
About 38.7bn m3 of natural gas was piped from Central Asia to China in 2017, up 13.4% year on year, reported Chinese state news agency Xinhua January 5, citing the project operator, understood to be CNPC.
Over the past eight years the China-Central Asia pipelines have sent 203.2bn m3 of gas to the world's second-largest economy, its report continued.
This updates a bulletin from CNPC just over a month ago in which it said the same pipelines had transported more than 200bn m³ of gas since the first such line started operations in 2009.
Xinhua said the infrastructure is "key to China's efforts to improve its energy mix and ensure its energy security" providing around 15% of the country's annual natural gas consumption, adding that it is made up of three routes with a combined 55bn m3/yr capacity, passing through countries such as Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.
CNPC-owned PetroChina has also been upgrading infrastructure in western China to carry the increased Central Asian import flows.