China bets big on pipelines
- Source: Global Times
- [03:12 December 14 2009]
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He said that compared with maritime transport, transport by land routes such as the Central Asia-China route remains the most secure, economic and prudent channel of energy import.
Xia Yishan, head of the China Energy Strategy Research Center under the China Institute of International Studies, said the pipeline will also accelerate the restructuring of China's energy sources structure.
According to statistics, the utilization rate of natural gas contributes to only 3 percent of the entire energy usage in China, where coal makes up 70 percent of energy use.
It is estimated that with the pipeline in use, the percentage of natural gas in China's total energy consumption will increase by nearly 2 percent, according to Chinastakes.com, an online English publication founded by senior financial professionals based in Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou.
"To increase the utilization of natural gas will not only contribute to the improvement of people's lives, but also reduce carbon emission and speed up China's development toward a green economy," Xia said.
Russia not offended
The transit route bypassed Russia, China's long-term partner, giving rise to concerns that the pipeline will irk Russia.
But Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said in Moscow earlier this month that the China-Central Asia gas pipeline won't harm the planned Sino-Russia pipeline, due to steady growth in China's energy demands. He said that China and Russia had "close contact" on this issue, according to Xinhua.
Lu Jianren, a researcher with the Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, also said the concerns are baseless.
He said Russia has huge gas reserves and does not regard China as a competitor, but rather as a potential buyer, with Russia ready to woo China to invest in Russia's energy industry, as evidenced by the oil deals signed between the two nations at the beginning of the year.
Song Shengxia and Zhang Han contributed to this story
