Chinese state company PetroChina has completed a new crude oil pipeline linking Lanzhou in northwest Gansu province with Chengdu in central Sichuan province, the company said on its website Friday.
"From now, there will be 10 million mt/year (200,800 b/d) of crude oil transmitted from Lanzhou to Chengdu," PetroChina said, adding that this is an important strategic pipeline for the country's northwest.
The 880 kilometer (546 mile) pipeline passes through Gansu and Shaanxi provinces and ends at the Pengzhou terminal station in Sichuan, linking to PetroChina's new 10 million mt/year Pengzhou refinery.
Trial operations at the refinery are scheduled to begin in April, Platts reported earlier this week. A PetroChina spokesman confirmed Thursday that the refinery is set to be commissioned in the second quarter.
The refinery is designed to process crude from Kazakhstan and domestic crude from western Xinjiang province.
The start of the Lanzhou-Chengdu pipeline comes after the expansion of an existing pipeline from Alashankou on China's Kazakh border to Dushanzi in Xinjiang last month, with its capacity doubling to 20 million mt/year. This will allow more crude to be imported from Kazakhstan, securing supply for PetroChina's Dushanzi refinery and the new Pengzhou facility, Xinhua news agency reported March 6.
