Tapping New Sources
2 min readTo secure a gas supply to the highly energy-dependent capital city，Beijing hasmade strenuous efforts to lock in new sources of natural gas to fuel the fast-expanding economy，which felt the pinch from gas shortages last winter when demand peaked.
Liu Yinchun，an official from the Beijing Municipal Development and Reform Commission in charge of infrastructure construction，earlier last month said the capital city will boast three gas sources by 2010.
Construction of the second Shaanxi-Beijing gas pipeline is expected to wrap up by the end of July and with the first Shaanxi-Beijing line，with an annual gas supply capacity of 3.3 billion cubic metres，the two lines will transport at least 15 billion cubic metres of gas from fields in Shaanxi Province to the northern part，centring on Beijing.
The country’s top policy planner，the National Development and Reform Commission（NDRC），has also given permission to PetroChina to build a liquefied natural gas（LNG）terminal in the Caofeidian port of Tangshan in Hebei Province to import natural gas on soaring demand in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region，Su Shulin，senior vice-president of the nation’s largest oil and gas producer，said.
The project，designed to handle 3 million tons of LNG in the first phase，is scheduled to start construction within the year and begin operations by 2010 at the latest，sources close to the project said.
In addition，the under-construction Jining linkage line will secure a further source for gas supply to the robust regional economy in northern areas.Industry experts said it is a strategic and far-sighted point of view for China to diversify energy supplies for long-term economic security.
“It is a wise way for a city to rely on both in-land gas pipelines and LNG imports for its gas supplies，”said Zhang Kang，a senior analyst with a research institute under Sinopec，Asia’s largest oil refiner and China’s second-largest oil&gas producer after PetroChina.
