CHINA'S state-owned PipeChina has started building the Chinese section of the Central Asia-China pipeline's Line D, which will carry gas from Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan to eastern China. Also known as West-East Gas Pipeline 4, the line will span more than 4000 kilometres from Turkmenistan's Galkynysh field to Shanghai and will have an initial throughput capacity of 15 billion cubic metres per annum, which could be doubled to 30 Bcm per annum. PipeChina this week began construction of the 3340-kilometre section of the pipeline that starts at the Chinese side of the border with Kyrgyzstan at Wuqia County, on the western rim of the gas-rich Tarim basin. The first segment of the 1219-millimetre diameter line will span 1745 kilometres from the Xinjiang regional capital of Urumqi to a terminal in Zhongwei county, in Ningxia region, where all four West-East gas pipelines meet. The first three lines are already in operation and, according to PipeChina, when all four are eventually connected, they will have a minimum total throughput piping capacity of 100 Bcm per annum. Two of the up-and-running lines have a throughput capacity of 15 Bcm per annum, while the third has a capacity of 25 Bcm per annum.
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