China West-East Gas Project 2nd Phase to Start in 2007

Chinese major pipeline, West-East Gas Project, which Chinese largest energy firm, China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) leads, will officially start the second phase in 2007 after the approval from Chinese National Development and Reform Commission. The project, which needs more than 2.6 million tonnes of steel pipe including 1.6 million tonnes of UOE pipe, is expected to use X80 grade of high strength steel pipe. The project, which uses high grade steel pipe for the first time in Chinese, could benefit Japanese steel makers as plate supplier for UOE pipe. The project with 4,200 kilometers of pipeline is to transport gas to Shanghai from field in Tarim and Erdos basin. The pipeline already works after the completion in 2005. The second phase is national project to construct pipeline from Hsinchiang Uighur Autonomous Region, Wuhan and Jiujiang to Fuzhou, Guangzhou and Shanghai for 4-5 trillion yen. The pipeline is to transport more than annual 30 billion cubic meters of gas from Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Russia along with gas from Hsinchiang Uighur. The main pipeline has 4,000 km length and the transport is 7,300 km from Russia and 7,000 km from Kazakhstan. The project is expected to use up to X80 grade of high strength steel pipe with 48 inches of outer diameter including 1.1 million tonnes of spiral pipe. The project will start the steel pipe purchase in July-September 2008 to finish the work in 2010. The X80 grade UOE steel pipe is provided from limited suppliers including Nippon Steel, JFE Steel, Sumitomo Metal Industries and EUROPIPE.