Construction of China-Myanmar Oil Pipeline Expected to Start This Year

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas). Construction of the China-Myanmar oil pipeline is expected to start this year, Chinese oil giant Sinopec has announced.

Earlier this month, China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) approved the oil pipeline linking Myanmar's deep-water port of Sittwe with Kunming, the capital of China's southwestern Yunnan Province. No timetable for the completion of the pipeline has been provided.

In January, production-sharing contracts were signed between China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) and Myanmar's Ministry of Energy, covering crude oil and natural gas exploration items in three deep-water blocks off the western Myanmar coast. The CNPC and the Myanmar Oil and Gas Company started feasibility studies later.

Huang Qifan, Vice Mayor of Chongqing, said the CNPC had chosen Chongqing, the province-level city in central China, as the destination for the pipeline. He also noted that the city would also build a 10-million-ton class refinery to process imported crude oil, which is due to come on stream in three years.

Han Jingkuan, Deputy Director of the Planning Institute of PetroChina Company, Limited said the government might also establish an oil refinery in Kunming.

China's three state-owned oil giants, Sinopec, CNPC and CNOOC, have accelerated projects in Myanmar, where the overall exploitation area has surpassed that of the Bohai Sea, said Han.

The cooperation between China and Myanmar will provide China for stable oil supply and ease China's worries of its over-dependence on energy transportation through the Strait of Malacca, through which 80% of all oil China needs is shipped, according to Takungpao, a major newspaper in Hong Kong.

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