Petrochina To Expand Gas Nothern Market

PetroChina plans to expand its natural gas markets in northern China around Beijing to ensure stable production at its largest gas field in the northwest, a company official said in a statement.

The company has confirmed that it has discovered a massive gas deposit in the Ordos basin with probable reserves of 602.5 billion cubic meters. PetroChina expects to start production at the field, called Sulige, at an initial annual rate of 6.5 billion cubic meters by 2007.

The bulk of the production will be transmitted through a pipeline to Beijing, which is building several gas utility plants to expand its gas use from 1.6 billion cubic meters last year to 5 billion cubic meters by 2005. The company is also looking at markets in other cities in northern China such as Tianjin, as well as cities in northwestern China, he said.

PetroChina is planning to build a natural gas pipeline from the Ordos basin to Beijing, first to transmit gas from the Changqing gas field in 2004 and later to transmit gas produced from the Sulige field. The pipeline will have a designed transmission capacity of 8 billion cubic meters.

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