New sources to ease Beijing energy shortage
By Li Jin (China Daily)
Updated: 2005-08-05 05:50

Beijing is expected to consume nearly 4 billion cubic metres between April and next March - 80 per cent of which will be used in the coming winter, mostly by residential boilers.

The second new pipeline is the Jining Linkage Line, which will bring gas from Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region all the way to Beijing, as well as to neighbouring areas around the Bohai Sea coast.

The Jining line is part of the mammoth west-to-east gas transportation project. With an investment of 8 billion yuan (US$988 million), it will connect the main pipeline to the second Shaanxi-Beijing line, according to sources at PetroChina, the country's largest oil and gas producer.

The 890-kilometre line, spanning the three provinces of Jiangsu, Shandong and Hebei, will be completed by the end of the year and start operations in January, said Chen Xiangxin, a project manager in charge of the Jining construction.

The third new channel that will feed Beijing is the multi-billion US dollar LNG terminal that will be built at Caofeidian of Tangshan in Hebei Province.

PetroChina, with two companies based in Beijing and Hebei, has received the initial go-ahead from the National Development and Reform Commission to build the terminal that will transport gas to meet the soaring demand in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region.

The three enterprises signed a framework agreement of co-operation last week in Tangshan, which states that the three parties agree to set up a joint stock company to handle the 10 billion yuan (US$1.234 billion) project.

"The companies are busy working on feasibility studies and choosing upstream gas sources at present," Liu revealed. "Construction of the port at Caofeidian will probably start this month."

Caofeidian, located 80 kilometres south of Tangshan, is a tiny island that is 2 kilometres long and 1 kilometre wide.

It is a natural harbour that can berth ships with a loading capacity of 300,000 tons.

The construction of the LNG terminal will not begin until the country's top policy-makers give the final green light to construction proposals, Liu said, adding that the project is expected to be finished in 2010 if everything goes smoothly.

According to the framework agreement, the first phase of the project will have an annual capacity to receive and transfer 6 million tons of LNG for the Bohai rim region, with the second phase adding a further 4 million tons.

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