World longest gas pipeline put into operation in China.

BEIJING, June 30 (Itar-Tass) -- The world longest gas pipeline
West-East-2 has been put into operation in China on Thursday. Its length
is equal to 8,700 kilometres, the Chinese media reports.
The gas pipeline, the cost of which amounts to 142.2 billion yans
(almost 22 billion US dollars), is intended for annually transporting 30
billion cubic metres of natural gas from Central Asian countries and the
Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China to the basins of the rivers
Yangzi and Zhujiang. As Vice-President of the Chinese National Oil and Gas
Corporation Liao Yunyuan said on Wednesday, eight auxiliary branches of
this gas pipeline will be ready by June 2012.
The Chinese second gas pipeline West-East goes through 15 Chinese
regions and is intended for supplying gas to more than 400 million
residents of the country. According to the plan of economic development of
China, as Liao Yunyuan said, the third line of the Trans-Chinese gas
pipeline, which will annually pump 20 billion cubic metres of gas from
Central Asia, is to be laid. "In future, it is possible that the fourth
and even fifth lines will be laid," Liao Yunyuan added.
The first Trans-Chinese gas pipeline was laid from the Tarim
Depression in Xinjiang to Shanghai.